


Some go Out with a Whimper, I go Out with a Bang

by ThroughTheFog



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover with my own novel!, F/F, F/M, Female Protagonist, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Gen, Government Testing, M/M, Memory Loss, Multi, Other, Past Character Death, Secret Society, all accepted sexualities, government involvement
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2018-04-03 03:44:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4085416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThroughTheFog/pseuds/ThroughTheFog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nico has been just fine living on his own. He doesn't talk to his old friends, doesn't even remember how long it has been since he has even tried. And he is great. But he can never forget that he is a demigod. </p><p>Percy and Annabeth broke up, so now Percy is letting himself be 'lost at sea' while he thinks about why Annabeth left him. </p><p>When the announcement comes out that the government has discovered demigods both of them are surprised and go to New Rome to help in any way they can. The last thing they expect though is to find out that the demigods that were 'discovered' no one has ever seen before. A group of them found New Rome and are seeking refuge, but the Greeks and Romans are just curious why they never knew of an entire island of demigods just off the coast of Alcatraz.</p><p>And who is Megara Jason, the girl that had given her life when she thought it would save this city? Is she really dead? Nico and Percy are going to have to work together when Nico gets stuck with subject 197088, otherwise known as Lady, who has no memory of who she is. Can the two of them become anything though? Lady is willing to help out while they try to piece together her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Announcement to Shake the World

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the crossover with my novel! I really hope you guys love my characters as much as I do. There will be a brief description of each new one introduced in a chapter so you can kind of get an idea of who will be there. There may be a couple cross over relationships but not many, most of my character have their partners. The two worlds have a few thing different, most of which will be pointed out and explained, but one of the biggest for relationships is that my book has a soulmate aspect to it that I hope you guys enjoy. It should come up in chapter two. Anyways please enjoy!  
> -Megara aka ThroughTheFog

_ Some go Out with a Whimper, I go Out with a Bang _

Nico di Angelo: Son of Hades from Rick Riordan’s series: _Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Heroes of Olympus._

Percy Jackson: Son of Poseidon from Rick Riordan’s series: _Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Heroes of Olympus._

 “Lady” or subject 197088: Parentage “unknown”. OC from my own novel _Through the Fog_.

“Tramp” or subject 196818/ Jake: Son of Poseidon, bloodline with Apollo. OC from my own novel _Through the Fog_.

Sophia Jason: Gifted daughter of Ares, carrier of Jason bloodline. OC from my own novel _Through the Fog._

Prema Cardoza: Quarter breed specialist. Descendant of Hades, OC from my own novel _Through the Fog_.

Annie Savellie: Gifted child of Zeus with varying bloodline. Specialist. OC from my novel _Through the Fog._

Gage Jason: Traditional son of Hermes, specialist. OC from my own novel _Through the Fog._

 

 

Chapter 1: An Announcement to Shake the World

Nico di Angelo hadn’t been to camp since his relationship with Will had ended about five years ago. It could have been longer than that, possibly even much shorter, but Nico had a hard time keeping track of the years now. There was nothing to celebrate and the only people he still spoke to were Hazel, Jason, and Reyna. But he didn’t talk to them regularly, and he sent Hazel two gifts around when he thought her birthday was and sometime during the winter. He knew that he wasn’t being the best brother in the world, but he kept tabs on her soul to make sure she was safe and tried to let her know once in a while that he was alive. Life like this was easier for him.

But, he never forgot who or what he was. A son of Hades. A demigod.

Those are things that are kind of hard to forget. No matter how much Nico can forget of his past it will never change the comforting feeling he gets when holding his sword, nor the nightmares that ravage his sleep. There are times where he will go days without rest, his brain shutting off for a few minutes at a time just to keep him alive. He is fully aware that running away won’t change his blood.

So when he was leaving his job at the geek store (a place where they sell comic books, mythomagic cards, and a bunch of other geek stuff) and Nico grabbed his usual coffee, he froze as an emergency broadcast was blared out over the mall’s intercom system.

“Citizens of the United States,” Nico swallowed the coffee in his mouth. What could have happened that the whole world needs to know about it? “We by no means wish to alarm you, but recent discovery of a new species proves to be a threat on the human race.” A number of people rolled their eyes, assuming that it was another child who spotted a U.F.O. Even Nico joined in with them, chuckling at the idea of aliens being a danger when monsters crawl the earth’s surface, the planet itself an evil living being.

Then the announcer continued and Nico felt his body go hollow. “The government has discovered a society of god and human beings. Demigods and demons alike. They are dangerous and immediate action will be taken to protect the human race. More information will be coming to you throughout the next few days. If you have information on a demigod near you stay calm, only use force if necessary, and call our hotline so we may eliminate the threat efficiently.” The coffee in Nico’s hand slipped to the floor and he swore that everyone turned to stare at him. His eyes widened and he wondered how many of them could read what he was. A few others in the mall, people he didn’t know but could sense, ran.

And Nico ran as well. He knew that it had to look suspicious but he didn’t care. As his feet carried him the shadows around reached out to him in comfort. He knew that using his powers in the center of a mall now would end badly for him so he ran out, down the street, and ran until he found an abandoned alley. Sirens blared behind him but he didn’t care. The moment he was back to his shadows they curled around him like thick fog. A car was rounding a corner but by the time it reached him he was gone.

There was no question where he would end up. The only think on his mind at the moment was a strong need to protect the person most dear to him. Percy. It was always what happened when Nico found out bad news, he wound up at Percy’s side or at least close. Then he would have to escape without being noticed and find someone to warn. He hadn’t even spoken to Percy since he left camp.

But he hadn’t found out information like this in so long that he was shocked when he didn’t come tumbling out of the shadow cast by Cabin three in Camp. No, this time he came hurtling out of a shadow and sent skidding over a slick wood floor into the sun where he collided with a mop bucket and metal pole. Cleaner spilt out onto what Nico suspected was a boat deck, his balance thrown by a gentle rocking, and Nico found himself face planted into lemony suds.

“What the?” an all too familiar voice sounded from behind him and Nico had a hard time figuring out why he was lightheaded. He rolled over and caught sight of a stunning Percy, wearing knee length shorts, water shoes, and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt. His heart skipped a beat and Nico cursed himself under his breath as he made contact with Percy’s sea green eyes. “Oh gods,” Percy ran towards him, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand and squinting down at Nico. “Is that you Nico?” He rubbed his eyes and Nico shook his head, unable to hold back his sarcasm.

“No, haven’t you heard?” he grunted as he tried to move and looked back at the puzzled expression on Percy’s face, “Calypso has been doing this new thing where she falls from the sky and into heroes arms just to make them fall in love with her so she can break their hearts.” He chuckled darkly as Percy’s eyes widened.

When he saw Nico smirk Percy crossed his arms, his black hair falling in front of his eyes annoyingly but keeping them free from the sun. “And she just arbitrarily decided she needed to look like an Italian man?”

Nico can’t help the fact that Percy’s words made him blush.

Percy glanced over Nico critically, like he is trying to find something that isn’t really there. He notices how toned Nico is, even under his black t-shirt and skinny jeans. His attire hadn’t changed much, he still looks like a bad boy and as those words crossed his mind Percy looked away embarrassed. “Oh you think I’m a man now?” Nico teased him, because after all these years he just can’t help it. Percy may make him feel like a fourteen year old again, but he certainly wouldn’t retort like one. The blush that bloomed underneath Percy’s cheeks made it worth it.

And then Nico has to wonder why he was blushing.

But as soon as it came Percy calms himself and crossed his arms at Nico. His face was still pink but Nico would be the only one to notice it was him blushing. “What are you doing here di Angelo?”

A part of Nico wanted to snap back at the distance Percy just established between them, especially since he is the one that is supposed to do that, but he stopped as a bigger part of him reminded him what was going on across the country. “Have you been to camp? Do you have a radio here?”

The puzzled look on Percy’s face returned and Nico moved past him and into the captain’s quarters or whatever they were called. There was a radio and GPS on board but both of them had cords dangling from where they were meant to be plugged in. Nico turned to glare a Percy but he was met with worried eyes. “Why the fuck aren’t these plugged in?” Nico snapped and Percy looked shocked by his language.

“I am on vacation thank you,” he mumbled and looked away but Nico got the feeling that Percy was hiding something more.

Frustrated Nico dug into his pocket and yanked out his phone.

“We can plug them back in!” Percy watched Nico’s face grow annoyed and can’t help but feel responsible.

Looking up from his phone screen Nico glared at Percy. “It will take too long. I’m not Leo, but if you want to electrocute yourself go right ahead.” The screen on his phone lit up, he always kept it off for work, and instantly announcements and emergency broadcast information flooded his home screen. Still irritated he shoved the phone into Percy’s face. “We need to get to the others,” he said and watched Percy grow shocked as he read over the notifications alerting all of society to their existence.

“Where do we go first?” Percy handed Nico back his phone and took the wheel of the boat as it picked up speed. His powers were incredible to watch and Nico had to shake dangerous thoughts out of his head to focus.

Making a snap decision Nico grabbed Percy’s wrist. “Ditch the boat, we need to get to New Rome now.”

He ignored the shocked look on Percy’s face as the shadows gripped at them and pulled them both forward.

 

When they showed up in New Rome all hell was breaking lose. Reyna caught sight of Percy and began marching toward him with a determined glare. She saw Nico at his side though and when she reached them she was screaming at the son of Hades.

“Where the literal fuck have you been?!” She screamed at him and swung to slap him. He dodged her but Reyna gripped the front of his shirt and pulled him close. “Do you have any idea how worried your sister and Jason have been?!” Then instead of hitting him she pulled him into the tightest hug she had ever given; “How much I’ve been worried?” he voice was quiet and Nico had to smile at how small she sounded.

Reyna pulled back and turned on Percy. “And you! We have been trying to get a hold of you for weeks! What the hell? You have responsibilities! Annabeth has been worried sick!”

Her words weren’t meant to hurt Nico, but she knew they probably had. It was his fault he wasn’t up to date on what had been going on though.

“Hey guys,” Nico drew their attention back to him and waved his arms around the area that had once been orderly New Rome. Now it was a chaotic mess with legionnaires running all over the place. “I assume you have heard the news. We are a hunted species now.”

Sighing Reyna crossed her arms and looked out over her city. “We haven’t been found by the government,” she explains. “As it turns out we weren’t the only city out there… The government raided a hidden island off of Alcatraz and destroyed the homes of hundreds of demigods…”

“Hundreds of demigods?” Percy choked and had to cough out the words in surprise.

Reyna nodded towards him and waved the two of them over. In the center of the field was a small group of demigods standing idle and looking around them with wide eyes. Nico raced to keep up with Reyna’s quick pace until they were standing in front of the group.

A man with shaggy light brown hair held out his hand. His golden eyes danced with curiosity as he shook Nico’s hand. “Gage Jason,” he nodded and took Percy’s hand. “Reyna is providing refuge for those we can find and bring back… I guess we should explain some things.”

Next to him a young girl, about fourteen, with dark oak colored hair and bright soft brown eyes was decked out in military attire and had a solemn expression. She stepped forward and bowed slightly to the others; “Sophie Jason,” her voice never quivered but the air grew tense, “my father has declared war on the government.”

“I think there is some explaining to do,” another girl rested a hand on Sophia’s shoulder. This girl was closer to a woman, between nineteen and twenty, and she seemed to have some authority in the group. “There is a war, and we are demigods, but we are a bit different from you…”

Nico nodded towards the woman and looked her up and down. She reminded him a bit of Bianca, right down to how she was protectively gripping a girl’s hand who couldn’t be any older than eleven. “My name is Nico,” he reached out and smiled as she took his hand. “Son of Hades, but I promise I don’t bite.”

At that the girl laughed. “Prema Cardoza,” she reached down to the hem of her black shirt that was torn and splashed with blood. When she lifted it up Nico’s eyes widened at the sight of a large tattoo. It took up a chunk of Prema’s side, swirls of black and gold that wrapped around a crowned skull. He knew it was symbolic to Hades just by looking at it. “And if you do bite, I’ll bite back.” When he looked back at her face she was smiling, “quarter breed descendant of Hades.”

He didn’t miss the slightly shamed tone to her voice and nodded.

The younger girl at Prema’s side gripped for the boy named Gage, “Why did Megara do this?” she whispered to him and a look of loss covered everyone’s face at the name.

Only one other person was in the group. A tall boy with blonde hair so pale it was white, cut into and undercut and his face adorned by a lip and eyebrow piercing on opposing sides. His eyes were a mix of gold, blue, and grey. The shades enticed Nico to stare into them but the boy looked away and down at the girl; “Annie, Megara thought that what she did would protect us. She begged for it, but she can’t change it now… Not after what her father did.”

“Straton is no father!” the little girl’s eyes sparked, the electric blue shade unmistakably a Zeus trait in contrast with her jet black hair. She was of Asian descent and she glared up to the boy like she was his boss. The odd thing was that the boy bowed his head to her and stood back. “You should know that once a father does what he did they lose their title. Straton is a traitor!”  

Gage wrapped an arm around Annie, looking more like he was protecting the other boy from her than trying to comfort her. “Come on Jeremy, you know that there is nothing that can change what Megara did… We should have seen the signs.”

“Wait a minute,” Percy cut in and looked at the group, “who is Megara? Did she turn you all into the government?”

He knew he had said the wrong thing by the reaction he got. Annie’s crystal blue eyes seemed to flash red for a moment before she was pulled back by Prema. “Megara would never do that to us! She let herself be killed to protect us!”

Sophia looked at Percy and her eyes were filled with sorrow, the kind of sorrow that Percy knew too well. She looked like she had let someone down. She was blaming herself for this girl’s death. “She thought she could stop the war… She was told that if she let them kill her they would free her father and leave the city alone.”

“And she agreed?!” Percy was shocked and then thought about what he had done for his mother, what he would do for his mother. All of them nodded, their faces either masks or raw pain. “Then why is everything falling apart now? What happened to her plan?”

“Someone stepped in front of the bullet meant to kill her…” they all eyed each other, Gage had tears in his eyes and Percy wondered what this girl meant to him. “Her name is Bri, she has a special regenerative power that she knew would save her…”

Confused Percy looked over to Reyna and Nico. Nico looked about as lost as he was but there was something in Reyna’s eyes that Percy was afraid of. Like whatever had happened had angered her beyond any turning point, she looked downright murderous. “So,” cautiously it was Nico to speak first, “what happened to this Megara?” his voice was more gentle than Percy had ever heard it before and Nico was surprised to hear the youngest of them all speak up, silencing the others with a motion of her hand.

“Her father was walking her down the aisle, the plan had been for her to be assassinated on her wedding day. No one knew about it, she had kept it hidden from us,” tears were rolling down the girl’s cheeks and Nico knelt to look her in the eyes, “Bri overheard and made the last minute decision to save her. Everyone scrambled when it happened and then Megara’s father,” she choked on her words and suddenly she wasn’t just retelling what happened but what she had seen with her own eyes. “He had a gun and he just… In all the commotion he shot her in the back!” she was sobbing now, curling in on herself and Nico reached out to touch her but she flinched back. “I was so close! I saw it happening! I could have saved her!”

Gage knelt down with Nico and let Annie collapse into him. He weaved his fingers through her hair and sighed, “Annie you know she loved you…” he murmured close to her forehead but she just sobbed. “She wouldn’t want to see you like this.”

“And I didn’t want to watch her die!” anger and hurt marred Annie’s face as she stood up, “I have spent enough years watching people die!” she stomped away from them and Nico didn’t have the heart to try and stop her.

It was Gage who stood up first and Nico followed suit. He met Gage’s eyes and recognized the loss within them. He exchanged a look of knowing before he spoke, “You have been through a lot.”

“I’m not even sure what a lot would mean anymore,” his eyes trailed after Annie and he broke apart from the crowd before nodding to Reyna. “I sort of took her in after she lost Megara. She has lost too many people, I’m sorry.” And he chased after her, weaving through the crowd with amazing swiftness.

“Sounds like someone I know,” Nico muttered and glared at Percy.

Looking back with narrowed eyes Percy crossed his arms again at Nico who merely mirrored the stance and looked a lot more threatening. “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked Nico offended.

“Running head first into things and willing to sacrifice yourself for the people you love,” when Percy tried to retort Nico interrupted him; “I just hope that maybe seeing the effect of that will make you see what that truly results in.” And before he could go further or Percy could retort what he said Prema shook her head at them and her face was even more stricken with grief than before. Nico could only imagine what this girl had been like to have this effect on everyone. She was probably a lot like Percy.

“Actually, Megara had thought this through for weeks.” Prema tightened her hand around the strap of a bag that was thrown over one shoulder. “After she was gone I found a journal she kept… All of it had been a deal to keep the city safe and free her father… He was being tested on by the government. At least she thought he was.” A dark look came over Prema and Nico knew that this time her eyes had flashed red, just like he thought he had seen Annie’s do earlier.

“How long has the government known about your city then?” Percy’s stomach felt hollow after what Nico had told him but watching this group grieve over one person he wondered what would have happened if Nico hadn’t been there to save him.

Jeremy moved forward, looking at Nico with a gleam in his unique eyes. “The government has known about us for over a century. But they had never known about our city.” Nico could tell that Jeremy was checking him out and wondered how the guy could be so sexual while still being serious. Winking at Nico and smirking he turned his attention back to Percy and checked him out as well. “You see, the group of demigods they found weren’t just demigods. We are sectioned off by the gods because they have been using us to build an army… Most of us have multiple godly bloodlines within us. But a long time ago one of us decide we needed to be monitored and tried to form a section of the government meant to keep the mortals safe. They brought in mortals and trained them to see through the mist so that they could see what was around them, then the mortals took it over and decided what was allowed and what wasn’t. Demigods had to be registered if they lived in the mortal world, relationships between mortals and demigods were discriminated and often ended by the government. Then they started to retain any demigod that broke their laws and began experimenting on them to find cures for diseases, tried to clone our DNA, wanted to test our powers.”

Reyna, Nico, and Percy all cringed at the thought.

“It got worse. To try and get more demigods for testing they offered the ones that they had a deal to stop the testing. They could hunt their own, track down family members and others like them that they could take down and bring in. Most of them refused, and the ones that couldn’t be used for testing anymore were tortured until they either died or agreed to work for them. They controlled how much power their ‘employees’ had,” Jeremy air quoted the word employee and rolled his eyes, “with a type of silver and iron wound together and cursed with demon blood. They used their new forces to bring in more demigods and then demons and their talking about capturing a monster. Everyone either lived on the island in the city or lived strictly by both the gods’ rules and the government’s laws…”

“Megara hated it,” Prema smiled as a tear broke free of her eye, “she had grown up mortal and thought it was evil and cruel. When Hera alerted the government that her father was unregistered she tried to fight the agents to protect him. He had been in hiding to protect her. Hera told her to go to school and play happy or she would see that Straton was tortured. After a while though Megara knew her mouth would end up killing him, so she made a deal that she would die if they set him free and kept the city safe. She didn’t even know that her father had turned agent for them…”

“Why would he do that?!” Percy clenched his fists at his sides and growled.

“Straton didn’t think that Megara was human anymore, she wasn’t natural…” Prema ducked her head, knowing that if he thought that of his own daughter it only meant he thought worse of the rest of them. All the specialists would have to watch their backs for The Last Hero who was trying to purify the world of people like them. “Megara was a specialists… Cursed and gifted at the same time…”

“What do you mean?” Nico stepped closer to Prema and she smiled at him as her fingernails turned black and the skin on her hand into ash.

She cringed as her fingers cracked and her talons were produced through the broken bone. “Specialists are dropped into the river Styx and then work on a council for the gods. We’re demonic beings after that.”

Percy looked at Nico who was raising an eyebrow at him as if to ask if he could do that when he had the curse of Achilles. “Umm… How did you end up like that with the curse of Achilles?”

A look of pain consumed Prema and she whimpered as her talons retracted; “A part of our soul gets removed before we are thrown into the river. We sink to the bottom and stay there for days, sometime weeks, before we can resurface. If we make it we are part monster part demigod… Demons. The strongest demon or demigod ever created was probably Megara…”

The group grows silent and Nico looked at Reyna. “We need to find who we can and take them to the camps,” he told her seriously.

“Don’t trust Ares if you go to the gods for help,” Sophia warned him. “That is who wants the war the most…”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Percy threw his hands in the air and then looked at Reyna. “What do you want us to do?”

Nico looked at him and raised an eyebrow, “I don’t know what you were thinking but I will be going alone. I can actually blend in.”

Reyna sighed and looked at Nico with pitying eyes. She wondered briefly if Nico would think the same way if he knew the truth. Biting her tongue she waved at him and watched him start to melt into the shadows, Percy reaching out like he wanted to grab at him.

“He will be checking in,” she smiled and hoped that Nico actually would this time.

Percy didn’t seem to have much faith as he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, like he has the last six years.”

Coughing Reyna pointed behind him and Percy saw Annabeth standing there. Her face was pained but she smiled anyways and ran to him. She wrapped her arms around him and he inhaled her scent, glad that the two of them could still be friends even if nothing more. He knew that it is his fault anyways that they broke up. When she pulled back there was a tear trail down her cheek and he moved to brush it away but she got to it first. “What’s wrong?” he asked as his hand fell to his side.  

Annabeth didn’t have it in her to lie so she just smiled and shook her head. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Puzzled Percy just smiled at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Wise Girl.”

“You don’t see your face when he leaves,” she confided.

“He is always there when I need him to be though,” Percy turned from her and started towards the group of new demigods.

Annabeth wondered if he even caught her whispering that he needs Nico now.

 

They all knew that it was going to be a long war, but Percy couldn’t believe how long it had been since he had seen Nico. Two years had passed and anytime Nico found someone he would bring them to a safe area in the middle of the night and leave without a word. Percy learned bits a pieces of Megara’s story. Each one told like a treasure. He grew to admire her, but at times he wondered if she was as selfless as everyone thought she was. Letting herself die seemed like something selfish to him. Then he wondered how selfish he had been putting all of his friends through similar situations… No one would talk about her parentage, but Percy had found out that the gods had gone through a lot to create their army. A lot of the demigods had a blessing parent, a god who had gifted their blood to the demigod’s parents before they were born. Jeremy had been educating him and Annabeth on life in the city; how the Jason family, Megara’s family, was the largest blessed birth line but Megara was a traditional demigod.

Prema talked about how Megara stood up for the quarter breeds and demons. Children of a demigod and mortal or monster. How she looked more at actions than bloodlines. How she tried to bring the city together even with her family disapproving it.

Jeremy talked about how she worked harder than any of them to control her darker side. Determined that it wouldn’t define her. How she stood up for her cousin who was a child of Nemesis, and each time Jeremy spoke about Megara’s cousin his eyes would brighten and Percy knew that regardless of how shamelessly he flirted with him he had someone he would do anything for.

Annie talked about how Megara took her in from an abusive family and raised her for nearly a year and a half with a blind girl. She always seemed to get happier when she spoke about Andy, the other girl, but when Percy tried to push for information she would close off. He wasn’t sure if it was just losing a sister or something more, but all she would ever tell him was that Andy wasn’t dead and Annie was going to push until the girl saw reason.

He found out pretty quickly that Sophia and Gage were Megara’s cousins. Sophia was grateful that Megara gave her chance, even though her blessed father was Ares: the god that had been responsible for the war and the death of Megara’s best friend Macayla, these demigod’s oracle. Gage was just lost without her, barely speaking at all let alone about her. From what Percy had managed to gather Gage had a rough past and he was continuously trying to make up for it. Letting Megara down had crushed him, he had been trying to be her protector.

Through all of it, finding more demigods and trying to make them feel safe in the new environment was the hardest challenge. Annie had shown up battered and bruised with a girl that was half dragon, the skin on her arms scaled, wings growing from her back, a tail that laid limp at the base of her spine. A set of horns had even grown from her forehead. But when she had woken up her and Annie had gotten into a huge fight where Annie shocked Jason by the bolt of lightning she had managed to summon. The girl had just bounded away, whistled, and jumped on the back of a full grown dragon that flew away and lost Annie behind it. Annie hadn’t come out and said it but Percy was sure that it was Andy.

Gage finally smiled for the first time, a real smile, when they got word from Thalia about a group of hunters spotted down south. She said that they had a leader with a pair of large black wings that molted pure white feathers. He nearly cried when he heard the news.

As it turned out they hadn’t burned Megara’s body. Bri had insisted they leave her intact and the hunters moved her from place to place so the government wouldn’t find her. The other specialists were helping them, and Prema confided to him that she had never felt Megara’s soul enter the Underworld. According to Bri, if enough of her blood had gotten into Megara then there was a chance that her powers could bring Megara back to life.

Percy asked more about Megara but all he could get out of anyone was that she was titled The First Born, Dark Side of the Moon, and The Last Hero’s Daughter. When he heard that Straton had been a hero he couldn’t figure out how, the title Last Hero for him felt like acid when it left Percy’s tongue. He tried to convince Hazel to help Prema summon Megara’s soul, see if she was truly dead, but Prema couldn’t do it on her own and ghosts weren’t something Hazel was confident with. They tried to call Nico but he ignored them.

Time went by and Percy spent most of it wondering where Nico had gone, why he wouldn’t answer. When a week went by and no new demigods showed up talking about the Ghost King, Percy had enough and he packed to go find the idiot. Reyna tried to reason with him, telling him that Nico needed his space, but Percy was tired of giving it to him. He had given Nico space for years, now he needed to find him and try and figure something out…   

_Break_

Groaning Lady woke up. She knew that it was a dream, a horrid flashback of the day she woke up in the government facility and couldn’t remember her name. Couldn’t remember anything. The room had smelled like rotting flesh despite how pristinely white everything was and the disinfectant that tried to mask the scent of death. Tubes were coming out of her wrists and she was hung on a wall like a picture; the door directly across from her was made of metal and glass, allowing anyone that walked by to view her like an exhibit. She had managed to get one arm free from the hooks on the wall and then panicked to get out of the strap that held her torso.

Even thinking about it now, since she has agreed to work with the government in exchange for her memories, Lady is surprised that no one had heard her when she fell onto that floor and fumbled over the metal bins that had lined her small room. Her body had felt numb and inflamed when she had woken up, the fall not even hurting her as she clutched her abdomen. Some part of her had told her that there was something wrong, but she ignored it as she tried to figure out where she was. The white gown she had been wearing didn’t keep her from noticing a large tattoo on her right foot that wound up her leg. She was so panicked though that she didn’t stop moving.

There had been large metal bins all over the room. Lady had found a dog tag on a table before her that gave her a name. “LADY” in all caps. She hadn’t been sure if that was her name or not, and now she knew it wasn’t, but then that was something to call herself. On the second tag were the numbers 197088. Subject number. She had gotten scared, knowing that she had to get out of where she was. There was nothing but medical equipment in the drawers, large and painful looking equipment that had to be outdated. Frantic she lifted the lid on one of the bins and promptly threw up when she saw the flesh that was held within. Lumps of tissue and small bones were sitting in stagnant blood and other bodily fluids. She gagged and fell back on the floor before making her way to the door. And that was when Lady would wake up screaming in her “room” that was more of a pure white cells she had coated in dark green and purple paint to match the black iron door.

Tonight was the night though. The government didn’t know it but she was going to turn her back on them and everything was going to change. She didn’t know that a boy had found the facility, or that he had gathered people with abilities similar to hers to raid the building and free them. All she knew was that she had been killing for them for too long, and she could deal with her lost memories but her partner was working for something far more precious. If Lady finished the list she was given, not only would she be killing the only person she had managed to grow fond of, but she would be killing a father. They had killed together, searched together, and spied together, without even knowing who the other was. But Lady knew that she wouldn’t be able to bring herself to kill him, not even rationalizing it with the fact that he had done horrible things. She had sinned with him, murdering people the government had deemed a threat. People like them… Lady needed out, and Tramp needed his daughter.

Both of them had searched, but Lady had found the only place that the government could be hiding a child. So they met together and decided that tonight they would free the child and run away. Lady knew that Tramp wanted her to go with him, but she didn’t have the strength to do that. She knew that her memories would reveal that she wasn’t the hero, even in the brief time she had been able to escape the government, back before they had offered her the lost memories she craved she had stayed with a mortal family and learned she was a demigod. They had been good to her, accepted her as part of the family and tried to hide her. When they were attacked and killed Lady had gone ballistic and used a power that the government warned her would turn everyone against her. Everyone would be afraid of her.

And tonight she was going to use that power to free all of them. She knew what it would mean for herself but part of her felt that if she didn’t help Tramp this one time, went against her orders and spared him to get his daughter out, that even with her memories she would be more miserable. Her breaths were shaky as she got up from her rickety bed and moved towards the door. Tramp knew to wait for her signal, she had told him that he would know what it was. Then while he was headed for the baby she would free everyone in their block. After she freed them she would do the same for the next block and so on, letting the others help free everyone they could.

Her fingers tingled as she laid them on the door. Ever since her arrival to the room they had taken extra precaution with her door. The entire side was wrapped in iron and silver, but Lady had played along with it taking away her powers, stinging her hand so she couldn’t touch it. But she never felt the pain, even as her palms began to blister. Power, energy, coursed through her body and Lady focused on her hands. Light started to gather in a soft purple light, but that slowly changed to blinding white and she had a hard time holding the energy back.

It burst from her hands in a sudden rush and everything she thought of was hit with the light. Her door burst from its hinges, the locks on the doors around them were struck and fell from the doors, the ceiling erupted and rained dust of plaster down on them because that was all that was left. Lady caught sight of the stars and the moon, her heart picking up pace as she stared at the sky. Demigods started peeking out of their cells and saw her standing there. Realizing that they were free all of them started running for the next block.

Block after block Lady broke the locks and the ceilings erupted with her power. Everything around her was chaos and she caught sight of Tramp, running with his daughter in his arms. He saw her as well and stopped, her mask still in place she smiled. He brought his down, something she had caught sight of before. No one in the system was allowed to but she had marveled at his pale skin and dark green eyes that seemed to light up when he talked about the woman he had loved then darken when he told her that she had died. That she had never been his. Tramp had been a hurricane to her, pulling her in dangerously, and Lady couldn’t bear to be the reason him or his daughter got hurt.

So when he waved her over and dropped his mask she shouted for him to go ahead.

“My name is Jake,” he shouted, “find me through Daemon’s guard line!”

Lady nodded and ran from him, knowing better than to show her face. If she did any friendship they had built would be gone. She had done horrid things when she escaped the government, things for no reason, and people had to know her face for what she had done.

By the time she was done with the blocks Lady was drained of all her energy. She drug herself out of the government lines and held herself up on the brick wall of an old building in the downtown area of whatever town she was in. No one could have followed her so Lady leaned against the wall, the damp and dirty smell entering her nose like a blessing after the stuffy blocks of the government facility. Her eyes were dropping when she heard it, a sound like a breeze only there was no way for a breeze to be anywhere near her. She spun around and watched her world tilt around a tall, dark figure. He reached for her but Lady jumped back.

“Don’t get close to me,” she warned him and saw something like compassion in his eyes. He stepped toward her but Lady bit drew a knife from her leg and held it out defensively. “I’m warning you. Everyone near me gets hurt.”

Nico stepped closer to the girl he had followed and saw a fear that was often reflected back at him in the mirror. “I’m already past being hurt,” he promised her and pushed on her wrist to lower her knife.

“I’ve done horrible things,” she warned and Nico wanted to think again but he didn’t. Instead she moved even closer.

“Like I said,” she watched Nico come towards her before she dropped that knife. “I am already broken. How about we go somewhere safe”

Lady looked at him skeptically and he could see the shadows clinging to her body. Her energy within was like a battle. “Nowhere is safe,” she whispered.

Chuckling Nico rolled his obsidian eyes and then reached out again for Lady’s hand. “I actually know of a place.”


	2. Picture Perfect Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico tried to take Lady to the safety of New Rome only to find out that she had other plans. After being drug to an abandoned house Nico learns a bit about the girl he is trying to rescue, realizing that she probably doesn't need it. Meanwhile Percy is tracking down Nico because for the past few years there has been something he has needed to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. Now new characters yet, but just wait for it and they will come. Same with fluff. This is a Nico/Percy fan fic so don't worry there is a lot of fluff on its way.   
> -Megara aka ThroughTheFog

Chapter 2: Picture Perfect Memory

There was no telling where Percy should go, but he had known that. What he hadn’t known was how utterly terrifying the world had become. Sure he spoke with his mother, but he hadn’t realized how much she had been downplaying the damage and suddenly all he wanted to do was go and find her so he could take her somewhere safe. But he knew she was safe, able to handle herself, so if he went by there at that moment she would never forgive him for worrying about her instead of the world. Instead of Nico.

Something had changed with his mom after Nico had taken him to obtain the curse of Achilles. It was like she knew that they were going to be more than friends or comrades in the future. Percy wondered what would be different if he had brought it up before him and Annabeth were serious. He wondered if it would change anything. If he had thought more for himself in the past he wouldn’t have hurt Annabeth when Calypso came back with Leo…

But he couldn’t think about that. There were a million and one places that Nico could be. All of the country was ravaged by the fighting; Ares had attacked the government openly and caused most of society to divide. There were groups that split, religious protesters and then those who believed that blood of the demigods would be the cure for everything. Most lived in fear of them, watching at public executions what the powers of a demigod could do. Percy had caught a public broadcast of the government ‘euthanizing’ a baby that was born from two demigods. They drowned the poor child and right before he could die his seal broke and killed the agents that had been holding him. Unfortunately it also killed the baby because too much power was released for his body to handle and he died quickly.   

Percy had an advantage though. Most of the demigods were found out by those seal marks, a burn that healed over to look like a tattoo. It was how the gods had been claiming the children that they wanted to build their army. It also was an extra precaution because the seal held back power that would burn through a demigod’s body if it broke before they were ready. Annie had explained that it was because of that Andy was blind. Her seal had broken when she was four or five years old and claimed her sight.

Those markings helped them a great deal, but before they appeared they had to burn through the skin. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, especially since the tattoos also made them stand out to normal humans. The bigger the mark, and the closer it was to the heart, showed how powerful a demigod was. Because the government knew that as well there were demigods that never even got a chance. They were just kill on sight. But Percy didn’t have to worry about that.

His pocket buzzed and Percy reached in to pull out a cell phone Leo had given to nearly all of them. The first had been Nico’s, and then when he met a few of the demigods from the island he had been able to make them is mass quantities. On the island they had already made a cellphone that worked, but it was weak without the magical borders that had hidden them, so Leo and one other demigod had supercharged them. It resulted in extremely short battery life but that was fixed by a child of Hecate providing them with a battery that fed off of sunlight and in the worst case blood.

Probably the most horrifying part of the strange demigods was how they had been taught to sacrifice. Percy knew that it was because they had been gifted with so much power, but he could see the shame and worry past the determination as a child would cut their thumb to create the beautifully intricate designs that summoned weapons and armor and tools for them. He couldn’t imagine being worried that you wouldn’t have enough blood to save yourself. Not to mention that it caused people to kill for blood, sealing it up in silver containers to be used later because everyone had something that they hid in their blood.

Cringing Percy looked down at the screen. Annabeth had texted him. He tried to smile but he knew that it was fake and no one was there to witness it anyways. So instead he just slid his finger over the screen and read through her rant about telling her the next time he decided to leave. The smile that surfaces then is real, he can’t help but be glad that she still cares. After all she had admitted to him that they probably worked better as friends anyways. She had found someone, Percy wasn’t sure who, but he was glad for her. Every time he tried to ask though she would just say that she ‘didn’t want to relationship’ in the middle of a war.

Both of them had agreed it wasn’t a great idea.

He apologized for not letting her know.

She told him he just better not do it again.

There was a pause and she was typing more. A location popped up on the screen and then a call came in from Reyna.

“There was supposed to be a raid at that location a week ago, two nights after you left.” Her voice sounded urgent so Percy held the phone tighter to his ear and stepped over a pile of trash before climbing in between a dumpster and a brick wall. They had taught everyone how to make a wall of mist so thick it would hide you anywhere but Percy still couldn’t do the sacrificing thing. Instead he just put up with the smell of rot.

“What happened with the raid? Are people hurt?”

Reyna was quite for a second and then he heard her exhale like she needed to keep calm. “It was a government facility. Nico was leading the raid…”

Her words made Percy’s breath catch in his throat and his first instinct was to lash out in front of him, his hand connected with the metal of the dumpster and started to throb. “Is he alright? Have you heard from him? How many people were captured? What is going on?”

“Calm down,” Reyna tried desperately to get him to listen but Percy just shook his head and felt his temple collide with the bricks behind him.

“Don’t tell me to calm down Reyna! Nico is getting tortured or tested on right now for all I know! I should have gone with him in the beginning! Or found him when the hunters got ambushed and Megara was stolen! I should have stayed up all night every night until I caught him bringing someone back!”

“Percy the raid never even got to happen!” she was shouting at him by this point to try and get him to shut up. When he did she sighed, “The entire line of buildings exploded before anyone could get on site. Nico had taken a few of the specialists with him and, oh gods the amount of demigods that came out or there. You should see New Rome, I’ve got people sleeping in tents on the streets and with all the snow right now we have been making blankets as quickly as we can hand them out and Sophia is telling me we haven’t even found a third of them. Most of the people freed from the facility had been in there before the war even started!”

The entire time Reyna ranted Percy was tapping his foot and trying to not scream at her. When she paused to breathe he jumped on her though, “Reyna what happened to Nico?”

She swallowed like she didn’t want to tell him. “The specialists lost each other trying to get the crowd under control and bring as many of the escapees into the city. When they met back up here Nico was just gone, no one rescued even remembers seeing him.”

Everything seemed to stop and Percy tried to figure out how you were supposed to breathe. This was worse than trying to hold up the sky, every part of Percy seemed to be cracking and falling apart at the seams. “Are you okay?” Reyna whispered through the speaker and pure anger tried to overwhelm Percy.

“How am I supposed to be fucking okay?” he snapped and ended the call. After making sure the screen went black he brought it all back up and found the address. Area 51, like they couldn’t have just said that. Percy thought about everything that had been happening and was overwhelmed for a moment as he stumbled towards the nearest open door. Inside was a group of mortals, eyeing him like a dangerous weapon, but he just collapsed in the closest chair and stared at the bar. Girls walked by him in skimpy outfits, each of them wearing makeup over small burns somewhere on their skin. It didn’t work well but they were at least employed and able to try and blend. They were treated like meat though…

One of the girls walked up to him with a pad of paper in her hands, she smiled and one of the mortals off to the side glared at her and muttered; “Filthy demon.”

Percy was impressed that the girl hid her shame quickly and was able to turn around and smile at the man: “Actually sir, I’m just a quarter breed. If you would like though, Candy happens to be a demon. I’m sure she would love to show you how wild a demon is.”

The man seemed to consider this and the girl swayed closer to him, an intoxicating scent rolling off her body until she was standing by his side. “That sounds like it could be fun,” he admitted and even his friends were checking out the waitress.

“Oh Candy!” she called and a girl with blue tinted skin appeared beside her, the outfit she was in was all bright colors and her eyes were a soft purple. “Please show this man a good time, would you?”

Candy giggled and the sound sent chills down Percy’s spine. It was no secret that some of the demigods had fought back, taking individual mortals that scorned them and showing them what they should really fear. Percy understood the idea, hadn’t even batted an eyelash when Prema told him that demon blood could make a mortal go insane if they were covered in it. Part of his just wanted to see the good in humanity still, lingered on the groups of mortals that tried to show the rest of society that good and bad existed everywhere and that demigods had been protecting them for years. They were small groups, few and far between, but they gave Percy hope.

When his waitress returned he was thinking about Nico. Her expression was shamed but she leaned down a bit to look closely at him and it changed to pity. The angle he was at gave him a great view of her cleavage but Percy didn’t even care, he was tired of seeing demigods reduced to this. “My names Kay,” the girl said quietly. Her dark brown hair was cut short and two ringlets fell to frame her face, longer than the rest. Large brown eyes looked at him and he saw pain there. “I doubt you remember me but your friend brought me to you about six months ago in a group. He left before I woke up, but I remember the look on his face when he saw you sleeping. The two of you sparked that night and I was curious…”

He raised an eyebrow at her, too distracted by the fact that Nico had stayed long enough to see him but not long enough to talk to him, so she continued. “I know that your group doesn’t really talk about it, but with us we all know about the soul mate of a person. Your emotions sparked together even when you were asleep. It’s so rare that I just wanted to know… What does it feel like? Finding your other half.”

Percy looked at Kay with slight shock, “I don’t know what you mean. I am single though. No other half to me.”

“That isn’t true,” Kay giggled, “Everyone has another half. But it’s rare to find them. Sometimes they were born way before you or way after you. That’s why my ability to tell when people are made for each other is kind of useless… I’ve only seen it happen twice.”

“Oh?” he leaned forward and smiled at Kay, “Well I think you got it wrong the second time. I’m not with my soul mate,” then he leaned back. “What was it like the first time you saw it?”

Kay furrowed her eyebrows at his reaction and then straightened up to look down on him. “It was a couple on the rock beach of our island when I was a little girl. They had found each other a long time ago but the girl didn’t remember. She cut her foot on the sharp rocks that were there and I saw them spark when he helped her… She didn’t spark as brightly as he did though, like the idea of loving someone scared her. If I had seen them when she was asleep though it would have been brighter. Like it was with you and that boy.”

She saw him roll his eyes but she knew she was right. “If you need a place to stay tonight there is a room up those stairs. When you get to the end of the hall touch the ceiling with something made of bronze or a drop of you blood. A ladder will take you to the room back there.”

Nodding Percy stood up. “Thank you,” he told her with a smile. “I know that this is a pointless question but, do you have any idea where that boy who saved you would be?”

Percy wasn’t sure what to make of the expression on Kay’s face but eventually she smiled and walked him to the stairs. He felt like a client but ignored the looks he was getting from everyone in the bar. “He drops in on us every once in a while, but for the most part he wants to save as many of us as he can… So he wanders.”

“He is frustrating like that,” Percy admits.

“But he always smiled slightly when he talks about you. It’s a sad smile but its there.” She hoped that it would comfort Percy but he doubted it.

Before he got up the first step he smiled back at her, his green eyes dancing with hope though, “actually if you ask, I’m not his type.” And before she could say anything he bounded up the stairs and found the ladder using a flat disk of bronze to open it he smiled and thought of how great Hazel had been to force him to take it.

He climbed the ladder quickly and pulled it up behind him, hoping that no one noticed him getting into the room. There was a bed and side table, a light hung from the ceiling and Percy pulled a string to turn it on. Dust hung in the air and made Percy cough, but beside the bed was a door he suspected led to a bathroom, then next to that was a dresser. He sighed, at least it was better than trying to sleep in a truck full of neglected circus animals.

The moment he flopped down onto the bed he was immediately assaulted by the scent of fruit and mint and aftershave. It was a different scent from the normal, but he knew it instantly: Nico had been there. He had been in that bed, sleeping under those sheets, and Percy was suddenly calm.

But Nico hadn’t only just been there in the past few months, two minutes after Percy had fallen asleep he was woken up by a loud crash and saw two figures hurtling through the air towards him.

_Break_

Nico was shocked when he took the girl’s hand and tried to shadow travel with her. She seemed to have other ideas than just allowing him to have control and the first place they ended up in was an abandoned house that had been torn through long ago. He had no idea where the house was but when he looked outside he saw others similar to it on fire. It had to be a common area for demigods to live in the mortal realm, but the house itself looked perfectly normal aside from the holes in the wall lining the side of the stairs. Glass littered the floor from broken picture frames, there was blood staining the carpet in dark symbols that Nico knew could summon up mass amounts of hell hounds, everything in the home seemed to be broken, and the girl he had just saved had brought him here. She walked over cautiously to a bedroom that had probably once belonged to a girl about her age but that had to have been years ago, the blood on the carpet said that much. The house looked like it had been attacked even before the war. But she stepped into the room and Nico could swear he saw a tear fall from under her mask.

“Why did you do that?” He looked around horrified and kicked debris and old belongings out of his way to get closer to her. She had small feet, and was nearly as short as a nymph, so he had to wonder how old she was. Her face was still covered by the solid white mask all the demigod subjects had worn in the government, hers was even screened over at the eyes so he had no idea what she looked like. Instead of wearing a government strap outfit she was cloaked in a dark green turtle neck with long sleeves and black leather bracelets around her wrists on the outside of the flowing fabric. The black skinny jeans she wore looked like she stole them out of Nico’s closet and her hair fell around her face in waves of midnight black, reaching close to her butt. As thin as she was Nico had to wonder if she had been starved and she moved like a caged animal, like she could sense everything around her.

He watched her for a while, admiring the way she inspected the house with her knife held out for anything that may kill them. She turned after she was sure they were safe; “I didn’t want you taking me somewhere to have them kill me,” her words were short and to the point but Nico just stared at her like she was speaking a different language. The girl started to look around the room again and picked up a book that had blood splattered on the cover like it was an ordinary object before she started to flip through the pages. “Are you going to just stand there and stare at me? I kind of escaped so I wouldn’t be an exhibit anymore.”

Nico realized that he was still dealing with an escaped victim of the government and shut his mouth. He wondered what this girl had been through… It was common knowledge that a number of the more “dangerous” or powerful demigods were put on display so that if the public wanted they could come through and see that the government had everything under control. But this girl was small and frail, she looked like if you took the mask off of her you would see a porcelain doll not a killer. The way she moved suggested that she wasn’t all that graceful, in the short time they had been in the room she had tripped over three things and her own feet twice, and she was all in all just really small. But there was something about her that Nico sensed was… ominous?

“I’m sorry…” he apologized and took a step closer to the bed in the room. “Why would you think I would take you somewhere to kill you though? You don’t even know me.”

“That is exactly why. How should I trust someone I don’t know?” Lady looked him over and thought about how easy it would be to kill him where he was. So exposed on the bed in a room that no one had even bothered to clean in years… She had to swallow to keep from letting the monster inside of her from taking over, the bite of her nails into her palms retracting. Every part of her hated and fought with the part of her that found pleasure in killing, because she knew that once it was over it was wrong. There was something or someone who had hurt her, and only killing them would bring her pleasure. All others just didn’t leave remorse.

A brief moment passed when Nico swore he saw true darkness come from the small girl, causing actual fear to rise in his chest, but it was gone quickly. “Well you were being rescued weren’t you?” he retorted and her and the mask that was balanced on her face shifted near her cheeks like she was smiling. “That was what I was there for.” He told her.

“That wasn’t a rescue you saw,” just from her voice he could tell she was trying not to laugh. “What you saw was an escape.”

“Okay,” Nico looked at her, a bit shocked that she knew it wasn’t him who had brought the entire place crumbling down. “My name is Nico di Angelo, son of Hades and guy who came to rescue you only to have his plans thwarted by a master of escape with the ability to bring multiple buildings down and unlock doors. Nice to you.”

Lady kept smiling as she took his outstretched hand, he had long fingers. “Hello Nico. I don’t think I would call myself a master of escape but I did unlock a lot of doors.”

“That was you?” he asked skeptically and pulled his hand back, slipping it into his pocket.

She nodded to him and he bet if he removed the mask from her face she would be smirking. “Yes, I got tired of my cell and wanted to take a walk.”

Nico looked at her skeptically and raised an eyebrow, “seemed like it was a little bit more planned than that.”

“Maybe,” she turned away from him and he could sense that she didn’t want to talk about it. He looked down her and tried to imagine how someone so small was so dangerous. Then he saw her hands, blistered and red from being touched by metal that suppressed the powers of a demigod. He couldn’t tell with her long sleeves and turtle neck but he had a feeling that if you looked at her neck and wrists she would have welts from healed burns from the same metal. It was commonly used by the government to detain demigods and in some cases to suppress their powers if they were sent out on assignments. The metal took power as well as injured the demigod if they strained against the bonds. Nearly every demigod Nico had managed to save had been scarred by them.

Lady saw him looking at her hands, she wondered if the look of concern was actually sincere or not. There wasn’t time for her to worry about it though, she had to figure out where she was going to go since she was free. Jake had said something about a guard but she couldn’t bear to face him, especially now that she would have to show her face. There were so many nights that she wondered if she wanted her memories back, all the government had given her was a wanted poster with her face on it. She had been killing so easily she couldn’t help but wonder what kind of monster she had been… Was it worse than the person she was now?

“They will be fine,” she promised him and held her palms together to hide the injuries. “I was only on the metal for a few seconds.”

“At least let me bandage them for you,” Nico took a step towards her and reached for her hand. A small shock of electricity coursed between them when he touched her skin. She was ice cold even to him, and she jumped back from him back into caged animal mode. They looked at each other and Nico brought out the mini first aid kit he kept on him at all times now. He actually had a back pack instead of just being able to shove everything into his pockets he had food, a first aid kit, clothes, and a ton of other stuff for people who needed it. His first aid kit even had ambrosia and nectar in it, but when he offered it to her she shook her head.

She didn’t like ambrosia, it always tasted like something she couldn’t remember but craved badly to. Besides, something inside her told her she deserved pain if she could ever feel it. Now her hands felt raw and exposed but not painful, like most times when she was hurt. “It’s not bad enough for that. Save it for an emergency.” Nico rolled his eyes at her and put the ambrosia back before he took out a roll of bandaging and some solvent.

He sighed and stepped closer to her again, this time taking her wrist lightly in his hands and lifting the wound closer to his face. She only came up to his triceps so her had her stretching her arm to look at her palm, and he had a feeling that when she sighed her eyes rolled underneath the mask. “It is bad enough for this,” he smiled and rubbed solvent over her palms. Her hands were small so he was able to cradle them in his own as he worked the medicine over her irritated skin. He tried to make sure he didn’t hurt her but nothing seemed to compare t how uncomfortable she was with the casual physical contact. And Nico had thought he was against people touching him.

“So now you know my name, and my parentage, but I have no idea about you,” he tried for conversation while he worked, and the girl seemed to relax when he spoke.

Lady took a shaky breath and looked away from Nico. “Welcome to the club,” she muttered in answer to his question. She caught him giving her a sad yet questioning look from the mirror plates in her mask. “I don’t know. You know as much as I do.”

That made Nico pause and he had to take a minute to not think about meeting a Percy with no memory. How hard it had been to play dumb and not know who the boy he loved was. He didn’t blame Percy for hating him a little after what he did, the entire camp did. Nico wondered if there was anyone out there that knew this girl, someone who cared and wanted to protect her as much as he had wanted to protect Percy…

“I go by Lady,” she whispered and he was brought back to reality, she had taken the bandages from him and was working on her own injuries. He want to take them back, feeling bad that she was doing it herself, she shook her head. “I feel invaded having someone else do this… Every time I get hurt I usually take care of it myself,” she told him and he could hear the loneliness in her voice. That kind of loneliness that he identified with, the kind where you may be lonely but you have been that way so long you don’t know what you would do with compassion and friends.

He leaned away from her in understanding. “Lady?” he asked softly and her head tilted up towards him.

“Yes?”

“Why that name?” he asked and a small chuckle left her mouth. It was such a sweet sound he nearly forgot how sad she was and wondered what her laugh sounded like.

Lady finished up the bandaging and pinched a set of tags at her neck. “It was either that or Subject number 197088. My partner in the system was Tramp, I think they were trying to be funny.”

The comment made Nico double take, Lady didn’t sound particularly fond of the government but she didn’t sound like she flat out hated them either. “I’m sure humor was the first thing on their minds,” he snorted and watched her shoulders shake through a silent chuckle. “You know, you’re okay with it you could show me your seal and I could try and figure out who your parent is. You shadow travel so it may be Hades, you could be my sister.” The last few words that left his mouth made him instantly sad, like he was betraying Bianca by being happy for more siblings. The truth was that none of them, not even Hazel, could replace her. He just liked having more people who understood what it was like to be a child of Hades.

But Lady just shook her head. “I don’t want people to see that… My mark,” Nico heard her pause like she was remembering not to say something, “my mark isn’t very clear. Besides, the army Ares is running has found ways to manipulate us through creating seals on dead flesh and bringing it ‘to life’ and drawing energy from that demigod,” he watched Lady wrap and arm around herself and look at her feet. “You have been nothing but kind to me, but I can’t risk someone controlling me. If Ares had my powers under his control there would be no stopping him…”

 A heavy weight fell over the room and even Nico started to wonder what would happen if they found a way to control the rest of the demigods. He had to let Reyna know, most of the demigods had started to cover their marks just to stay hidden but now there was an even bigger need to do so. If Ares found a way to control even the demigods like Nico and Percy then that would be the end…

“Is that why you won’t take the mask off either?” he wondered if it had anything to do with physical appearance to try and control a demigod’s energy but he couldn’t think of why that would be. Lady had been locked up for gods knew how long though, she may not even realize that her mask was on.

She shook her head again, “No. But I won’t take it off.”

Nico watched her lift up a hand and trace the edge of the mask like it was something precious, a life line. “Isn’t it uncomfortable to wear it?” he asked cautiously and she just turned towards him. Nico hated this feeling in his gut, usually it was a group of demigods he was rescuing. When he only rescued one, especially when that one insisted on taking control of his traveling, he was uncomfortable. Lady interested him in a way he couldn’t explain; aside from the fact that she had taken out the entire government complex single handedly there wasn’t anything about her that was abnormal. Granted her face was hidden, but she was fairly average. Small for sure, but Nico figured if she wasn’t nearly starving she wouldn’t be an overly exaggerated person. Her breasts seemed a little full for her frame, but not over dominating and her hair fell down like a drape of black velvet. With the mask on it was hard to tell if she was pretty or not, but either way Nico was still intrigued.

She wondered how Nico would react to the truth. Lady was a good liar, but this boy had been only nice t her since he showed up. “After a few months you don’t even notice it’s there. I’ve had it too long to remember the feeling of the wind on my face.”

“That fucking sucks,” Nico didn’t even mean to respond, mainly because an ‘I’m sorry’ always felt like a slap to the face when people talked about his sister or his father. It made him angry to hear them pity him.

Lady tilted her head to look at him, interested by his choice of words. “Don’t pity me. I was one of the few demigods who deserved to be in there. I had to be taken off the display line, the only people allowed to view me were government personnel when I came back.”

“Back?”

For once Lady wished that she could take off her mask to get a clearer view of Nico’s face when she said; “I escaped once before. Right after I woke up.”

“And they found you?”

Nodding Lady continued, she owed Nico something. “I was hidden by a family on the edge of a forest. They managed to keep me invisible for a few weeks, and my memories were returning. But they found me from a leak about a demigod and I didn’t know what to do… I was building a life that didn’t revolve around killing. The family I lived with had never seen do anything violent, at least not to hurt someone on purpose. But then…” her nails dug into the bandages on her palms, “they murdered them. My brothers were taken from me and I was consumed by rage so I killed their murderer.” Her head fell but her voice didn’t falter, “I used so much power that I was dizzy and they shot me in the back of the skull,” she let her fingers slip through her hair and felt the small scar on her scalp. “All the memories of my past that had been coming back were gone again when I woke up. Nearly all. I remember the family but all the dreams I had been having were torn away. That was nearly a year ago and I haven’t managed to remember anything since. Nothing except the pair of eyes I saw…” Rage, grief, abandonment, betrayal, a mix of emotions flooded through Lady when she thought about those eyes.

“You remember a pair of eyes?” Nico looked at her skeptically.

“Not my own. These were cold blue, emotionless and… Hateful.” She shuddered and Nico wondered what had happened that those eyes were all she remembered. “People don’t know true hatred when they talk out of anger.”

Lady was eerily calm and Nico thought about how hard it would be to hate someone you couldn’t even remember. He took her words deeply, like she was speaking to a part of him that had never seen the light of day. Nico didn’t truly hate anyone, not compared to the hatred that filled Lady’s stance. “You don’t remember anything else?” he asked her again.

A quite pause came over Lady and she had to look away from Nico; “Nothing important.” She told him. “Just feelings over things… Like having an object bring sadness but not knowing why…” Nico could tell that there was more but Lady obviously wasn’t ready to talk about it.

Rocking on his feet Nico wanted to leave, but he sure as hell wasn’t leaving a little girl alone in a burning neighborhood. Regardless of how powerful she may be. “We should probably leave. I don’t think it’s safe here.” As they looked around the room again Lady and Nico both realized something strange.

“There are no pictures in the frames.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the lack of fluff, I promise to make up for that soon. Lady and Nico will not be a ship in this, just really good friends. Next chapter Percy will find Nico again and possibly confront him on what has been bugging him for the past few years. Any guesses to what that could be? Or how about who Lady's parent is? I would love to hear your guesses!   
> Kudos and comment :)  
> -Megara aka ThroughTheFog


	3. Let the Past Carry Me like a Wave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico and Lady may not be the most efficient traveling pair, but when one of you is a power surged amnesiac it is hard to know where you need to be. So what happens when Lady sees the horrid treatment of her fellow demigods? Will Nico even put up with it? Lady may be small but there is a darkness about her that will terrify anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo this will catch you up on what Nico was doing while Percy searched for him. Basically it is just him dealing with a girl that has no memories and trusts no one. This will be the last chapter before serious smut ensues so be prepared. Also into to Shaun Jason!   
> I am very sorry that this update took so long, really I have been working on it (the chapter is huge!) but I also work upwards of fifty hours a week now so it can get difficult to find time to fine tune everything. But fear not, I have not abandoned any of my stories!   
> -Megara aka ThroughTheFog

Chapter 3: Let the Past Carry Me like a Wave

Lady wasn’t sure why she didn’t trust Nico’s shadow traveling. After the house they ended up in an old motel in the middle of the woods, then at a camp that Nico cursed under his breath when he saw it, then the docks somewhere that made them both look at each other with grief, and now they were in San Francisco. It was another dock, this one facing off to Alcatraz as a storm started to brew. It was April and the weather had been raging as it usually does when the gods become stressed. Nico’s father had explained that Megara had been someone he had desperately wanted to watch mature, wanted to introduce her to Nico regardless of what the others said. He had told him that Megara was hope, not just for the crowd but also for individuals. And ever since he told Nico that it was hard not to wonder just how much that girl had been like Percy.

Unlike the others Nico didn’t believe that the girl who gave her life for the man that took it was still out there. If she was he felt for her, but he knew how dangerous hope could be. And after all, his father had told him that Megara was hope. And if she were hope then she was someone that Nico didn’t want to meet.

“Where did you bring us now?” he groaned. They had been all over the country and he knew that on some level these places were a part of Lady’s memories because the two of them had been erratic each time they stepped into the darkness. Each time they were somewhere she had been though he knew that it pained her to not remember. “I don’t spend a lot of time on Pier 31.”

At his comment Lady huffed, “Obviously, this isn’t even Pier 31.”

Shock overcame Nico and he rushed to face Lady, “So you recognize this place? You remember?”

He could almost feel her roll her eyes at him. “No dipshit,” she pointed to a sign a few feet from where they were standing, “that sign says Pier 7.”

“Oh,” Nico glowered at the sign and then looked back at Lady, “well sorry I didn’t look at everything the moment you threw us from the nearest shadow.”

A giggle escaped Lady, “Sorry I like to travel fast, Mr. Driving Miss Daisy.” Nico glared at her and she giggled harder, trying to remember when someone other than Tramp had managed to get her to laugh.

Nico gripped Lady’s hand and his eyes were wide as he looked at her, some protective primal part of him surfaced from the depths of Bianca’s death and he wanted to protect her. When she stopped giggling his face saddened and he leaned down to try and look through the screen of her mask; “You should do that more often.” He told her honestly and then realized he was touching her and let her go. One thing he had learned over the past few days was that Lady was greatly against any physical contact.

“We should find somewhere to stay,” Lady looked down at her hands and then up at Nico. “Try again tomorrow?”

He rolled his eyes at her, “Would you let me take you to a friend of mine? I at least know where I’m going.”

Lady flinched at his words but knew that Nico was right. They had been jumping from place to place for a week, he hadn’t turned her in yet. With a defeated sigh they started heading into the city. Since the war started there were even more people flooding the city streets. The island was closest to this big city so it was only logical that most of the demigods hid away there and that brought government agents and protesters to the area to sniff them out.

“The evil is within you,” a man in a long trench coat lunged at Lady, his eyes wide with hate and Nico reached out for the man’s arm, pulling him back from Lady as quickly as he could. “Are you that monsters keeper?” The man snarled and Lady couldn’t help the darkness within her that wanted to lunge for his throat. “They should all be put down like the beasts they are.”

Nico leveled his gaze with the man and pushed past him, pulling Lady along behind him they past a showing of the latest ‘euthanization’. A part of him hoped she didn’t see it, but a bigger part knew it was useless to hide it from her. She looked up at the screen and paused, he could only guess that the expression on her face was one of horror. Then he noticed what was going on as the television turned to background before a group gathered around a young boy.

Before he could stop her Lady was grabbing one of the people in the group by their shoulder and pulling them back. She didn’t even bother to look at them as she knelt by the boy. He was young, obviously escaped from somewhere and he had burns on the side of his neck that looked fresh. His hair fell in his face in dirty brown locks with flex of blood still staining the ends.

Lady gripped the boy by the shoulders and brushed his hair from his face. He didn’t look familiar to her, a cut ran from the corner of his left eye down into his hair and it was still bleeding. The boy was only a little taller than her so Lady knew she could carry him out if she needed to.

One of the girls in the group kicked Lady in her back and she fell all the way down to her knees, jutting forward she gripped the boy in her arms to keep him from falling over. “Joining the trash are you?” the girl sneered as Lady straightened the boy out and turned to face her assailant.

“Lady come on,” Nico came forward and saw the boy, stopping in his tracks when he noticed how badly he had been beaten. The world had become so cruel it even shocked Nico at times.

“Oh are you this one’s handler? The masked ones usually keep to the leashes, why did you let her off?”

He couldn’t place which one of them spoke but Nico ground at his teeth to keep from snapping at them. “We’re turning the boy into the government so you should tell your bitch to back off.” This time it was a large boy stepping closer to Nico, his brown hair dyed black in patches like that made him intimidating. He was probably closer to twenty five but nothing he wore reflected that as he pulled up his sagging pants.

The ground started to shake as Nico’s protective side started to surface and Lady knew she needed to do something. Quickly she reached out and yanked at the edge of the boy’s pants, bringing the fabric down to his knees he stumbled and turned to face Lady. Rage flared in his eyes but Lady dodged his first attack. Nico marveled at how graceful she became as she wove past blow after blow aimed at her, never once letting the gang touch her. She caught his eyes and nodded towards the boy, Nico knew she was planning on drawing the group away from him and nodded as he made his way towards the collapsed demigod.

“Dogs should know their place,” one boy spat at Lady and she felt spit hit her arm but she ignored it.

As they got closer to the wall she watched Nico more intently as he scooped the boy up from the concrete and started to carry him away. A girl in the back of the group saw her watching and followed her gaze back; “Hey that boy is taking away our bounty!” she cried and instantly the attention was turned away from Lady. The five of them started back toward Nico who was laying the boy down behind him to get ready for a fight.

“You should never turn your back on a monster,” Lady growled and lunged for the closest ones, wrapping her arm around them she felt her stomach clench and the girl in her grip went numb as energy flooded Lady’s system. Before the next one in the group could get close to her she felt the ground shake, the building around them twisting but this time because of her. A vine burst through a crack in the sidewalk and wrapped around two of the boys, thorns digging into their skin and staining the vine red with blood. The sky darkened and lightning corded the area around them just before rain fell in sheets.

“Monster,” one of the boys gasped and Lady couldn’t help but grin as rain gathered in her hands.

The boy pulled a knife out and ran for Nico but his eyes were on the boy at Nico’s feet.

Lady ran for him, the other girl ignored until she felt hands wrap around her upper arm and she was yanked to the side. The word spun around her and the next thing she knew she was looking down the barrel of a pistol. “I’ve got you now,” the girl hissed and Lady couldn’t help but laugh.

“You seem to forget that sometimes when you label someone a monster,” Lady felt for the girl’s energy and twisted it, pulling it from her body and sharpening it as her hold became stronger. Cuts appeared all over the girl’s body and she screamed, firing the gun just to the side of Lady’s face.

She didn’t even give it a second thought as her skin deflected the bullet and sent it flying into a brick wall. “You’re not aware of how right you are.” Lady growled and released the energy she was holding onto, sending it back into the girl’s body so quickly that she was sent into the street.

Turning on her heel Lady didn’t even look to see if the girl was still alive. Her focus was on Nico who had the last of the group on the ground and a black sword pointed at his throat. Lady stepped next to Nico and smiled down at the boy before her. With a jerk of her chin he looked over to his friends and saw them all helpless and hurt. “Run now,” Lady told him. Nico pulled his sword back as the boy crawled along to the street edge and did just as he was told, taking off like the devil was at his heels. For all Lady knew though that was who she was.

Nico looked at her in disbelief as she knelt by the boy and shook him slightly. “Hey she whispered, “You’re safe now.” And just as easily as she had torn at one girl she focused her own energy on healing the boy at her side. As her hands moved over his body they seemed to start to glow a soft lilac color that fascinated Nico, he leaned in closer and when she was done the boy under her touch sighed.

Lady had been so engrossed in her work, trying to keep her thoughts on healing, that she didn’t even notice when Nico leaned over her shoulder until she was done. He was looking at her in awe and she jumped back, fearful of what he was going to do to her now that he had watched her torture and possibly kill a person. Her eyes fluttered over to the boys caught in the vines and she waved a hand, causing the vine to burst into dark blue flower petals and the boys to fall on the ground. They were bleeding but they managed to stand and wobble away.

“How did you do that?!” Nico asked and Lady rolled her eyes at him, only to remember that he couldn’t see her face.

“I don’t know,” she whispered, “I’m sorry you had to see that…”

The mask didn’t need to be gone for Nico to see how scared Lady was. Scared of her own powers, something that he had gone through and was still often shocked by. He reached out and grabbed her by the shoulder, “Hey,” when she tilted her head he smiled, “we’re all fucked up.”

If only Nico knew the whole truth.

 

By the time that the boy woke up Nico was already asleep. His snores filled the dinky little motel room they had managed to break into, and they had dumped the boy on the bed so Nico was curled up on the couch. He reminded Lady of a black cat when he slept, but she doubted that he would find the humor in it.

“Where am I?” the boy mumbled and when his eyes fell on Lady’s mask he jumped back towards the headboard.

Lady shook her hands and pointed around the room, “I swear, this isn’t the government,” she told him in a hushed voice. “You’re safe here. What’s your name?”

The boy looked at her cautiously, like he knew something that she didn’t. But eventually she watched him relax and let his head fall into his hands. “Shaun,” he whispered.

Behind them Nico yawned and blinked dark eyes at the boy. “Nice to meet you Shaun,” he stretched and Lady wondered if he had ever been asleep. “I’m Nico, Nico di Angelo.” His long legs crossed the worn carpet quickly and he stood in front of Shaun with a small smile. “You got a last name or just Shaun?” Nico knew that last names held power in the militia demigod culture that a disgrace on one family had been to lose their last name completely.

Shaun looked at his hands and slowly clenched his right one into a fist. “Jason,” he whispered.

He had hoped that neither of them knew what that last name meant but Nico’s wide eyes were a tell-tale sign. “Your one of the Jason’s?” he asked softly but watched Shaun cringe at the statement. “My best friend is named Jason!” he turned the conversation as quickly as he could and regretted how dumb it sounded.

“I bet he gets a lot less grief for it,” Shaun mumbled and stared over toward the window.

“Isn’t the Jason family being hunted down?” Lady asked curiously, and Shaun was shocked that the girl actually knew about that. The Jason family held a lot of power in both the demigod world and the mortal world, so the government had taken special care in picking them off one by one without causing a riot.

“How did you know?” he asked nearly under his breath and looked into the screened openings where her eyes hid.

Lady rolled up the long sleeves of her night shirt to reveal thick leather bracelets. She unsnapped the right one and pulled it away to reveal a deep red scar that circled her wrist. “I did a lot for the government while I was in there,” her voice started to turn cold, “they wanted to take care of the Jason family, and they would have given them to me but they said I was needed for bigger targets… Another man is working on the Jason’s…”

Careful not to hurt her Shaun reached out and traced Lady’s scar. “What did they do to you?” he asked and Lady cringed at the pity in his voice.

“Nothing that I didn’t deserve,” she wrapped her leather band back around her burn and stood up. Under her night shirt she was wearing a baggy pair of pajama bottoms that Nico and her had “recovered” from a department store. He had grabbed her a few things he knew she would need and then left before anyone noticed her outside in her mask. Shaun zoned out on the one sock on her right foot and had to pull himself out of memories of his cousin. When Lady walked away from him she could feel his gaze and grabbed another sock to cover the scar on her other ankle with a sideways glare at him.

Looking at Nico Lady rolled her eyes and threw him the pack that they had on the table, “I guess you should get dressed before we go anywhere,” she smiled and wondered how much longer she was going to let herself hang around Nico. He was a nice guy but each day that went by Lady grew more and more aware of how much danger she was putting him in. Since her escape the executions had doubled and soon it would be even worse if she didn’t reveal herself to the government. “I’m going to grab a shower and then we can go.”

“Oh?” Nico raised an eyebrow at her, “are you actually going to let me take the lead for once?”

“We’ll see,” Lady sighed and headed to the bathroom. Nico could tell that something was off with her but he couldn’t figure out what. He knew that she wanted her memories back but there weren’t many ways to do that unless they came across a gorgon. Before he could call her out on it though she had grabbed her clothes and shut the bathroom door behind her.

 

Inside the bathroom Lady let out a long sigh after she locked the door. To be safe she went over the entire room; the window was blacked out by a previous demigod but there were still three small devices in the cramped room that she managed to find. One was a microphone that was hidden on one side of the mirror and the other two were cameras. One behind the shower head and the other pointed at the mirror behind some dirty sheer curtains. Lady smashed the cameras under her heel and then grabbed the mic and tore it between her hands.

Once she felt comfortable she stripped out of her clothes and stared into the mirror, her mask mocking her as much as her burns. She trailed her fingers over the scars the government left her with as well as tracing over her seal mark… Turning away from the mirror she started the water for the shower and dropped her mask onto the pile of clean clothes. Water ran down her skin in a rush of relief. The shower and entire bathroom was disgusting but nothing could compare to the feeling of hot water on her skin, she smiled knowing that she wasn’t under a five minute limit and a giggle escaped her lips as she combed hotel shampoo through her long hair. Suds ran down her as she finished washing off, circling the drain before disappearing from sight. Lady smiled as she stepped out of the steam and wrapped the too small towel around herself, it had to be more of a hand towel to anyone bigger than her but she managed to dry herself off with it.

The clothes that Nico had helped her get were not her top choice but she knew that right now it was just a matter of dealing. He had grabbed her a skirt and thankfully she got her hands on a pair of thick black tights to go underneath it. A bonus was he tended to stick with black, Lady really didn’t want to stand out, so the shirt she pulled on being a soft grey turtle neck fit with everything else. The shirt was sleeveless but she could hide the scars on her wrists under the leather bands she had.

Lady didn’t look in the mirror often, but when she did it always made her sick. As sad as that was the sight of her own face made her stomach churn. She carefully combed through her hair so she could pull it back, braiding the front around to the back of her head so it could hold her mask on easily. Memories tried to push their way to the surface as she held her own gaze, fighting off the urge to puke with each breath. Her heart seemed to stop each time she saw herself and she couldn’t help but wonder what horrible things she had done that would make her hate herself so much.

 

Nico wasn’t sure what was happening but the next thing he heard after getting dressed was a loud smash from the bathroom. Both him and Shaun rushed to the door but it had been locked shut, Nico jiggled it but knew that they would have to break their way through. “Lady!” just as he was backing up to kick in the door she threw it open, revealing herself with the mask pressed to her face. The mirror was broken and glass littered the floor but nothing else seemed wrong as Lady pushed past Nico and fastened her mask on. Her wool stockings she knew had to look out of place but she didn’t care, instead she grabbed her convers and started to tie her shoes as the two boys stared at her. Thankfully both of them were fully dressed so she wasn’t going to have to wait to leave.

“We should get going,” she looked Nico dead in the eye and then looked over to Shaun who she could feel watching her far too closely for her liking. “I guess we are taking him with us,” she knew that the comment came out harsh but she didn’t like being inspected.

Shaun shifted on his feet, realizing that Lady had caught him staring at her. “Actually,” he backed up a few feet from her and looked out the only window in the room. It was boarded up with old chunks of plywood but a section had rotted away and Shaun could make out the empty street outside. It was dark out, probably close to midnight by now, but he didn’t mind the dark. “I know of a safe place in the city for me…”

Both Nico and Lady looked at him but he just stared out the window. “I’ve been trying to get there for a long time, but I was held back because of who I am.” He shrugged and Lady bit her lip nervously, forcing herself to look away from the Jason family member. She had been mentored by the man who was searching for Shaun’s family. A man named Stratton, and if she was intuitive enough she knew that Stratton had been chosen because he was part of the Jason line. The man was nice, kind to her even, but there was something as cold as ice about his heart. She had never seen his face but she could feel the hatred she was sure she would see in his eyes.

“How do you know where New Rome is?” Nico asked curiously and Lady raised an eyebrow at him.

“Is that the place you have been trying to take me to all this time?” she asked and crossed her arms.

Nico nodded and looked back at Shaun who just sighed. “About three days before the government managed to invade the Island I had a dream from my mother about a safe place for demigods that wasn’t my home. I didn’t know what it was trying to tell me until later of course, and I told one of the few people I trust before the raid started. It was a good thing I did or there wouldn’t have been anyone who knew. After my family realized they were being targeted they got into the helicopter and skipped out. I didn’t make it in time, one of the agents got me and took me into holding… I barely escaped with my life, and now there is a bounty on my head for a family that cares more about the bloodline than each other.”

The room was silent but Nico could understand why no one wanted to talk: the gods only knew what Lady had been through, no one even looking for her; and as far as things went for Nico the only person he would want to look for him was probably busy training the newfound demigods for yet another war. All three of them were wanderers in their own right.

“I have to go there alone though… If I don’t I will never gain the support of my mother, and if we are going to win this war we need all the help we can get.”

Nico nodded to Shaun in understanding, not even caring who the boy’s mother may be. Lady still watched Shaun curiously and Nico knew that this was going to be his only chance to catch her off guard. He was going to get this girl to New Rome if it was the last thing he did.

Shaun caught what he believed to be Lady’s gaze and tilted his head to her, “I hope the two of you can find what you’re looking for out there.” As he spoke Lady felt something pull at her chest: her memories. She needed to find a way to get them back, if she didn’t she wasn’t sure what path to take… Maybe it would be a good idea to find Jake.

No, if she did that… She couldn’t stand to go through what happened to her on the outside with May. Lady had never known she was able to feel for someone else; but being her it had been doomed to fail. All Lady knew of relationships was pain, and it never failed that those she got close to, died in horrific ways. As Shaun walked past her she lifted her hand to offer to follow him for protection on the off chance this place may have a way for her to get her memories back. But before she could even touch him Nico’s hand wan on her shoulder, holding her back from someone that Lady thought may lead her to answers.  “He needs to do this on his own,” Nico’s voice was barely a whisper in her ear and then the shadows started to consume her in a cold black smoke.

“Shaun!” Lady hadn’t even realized that she screamed for him, catching only a brief view of him turning and staring at her wide eyed. His expression turned angry and confused as he reached for her and then he was gone.

 

In the shadows Lady didn’t even have the will to truly fight Nico. Her mind was breaking, she could nearly feel the spider webbed fractures running through her thoughts and cutting off every place she tried to grab hold of. The sound of the ocean filled her ears so deafening that she started to shake with the feeling of longing and heartbreak. Her ability to push harder than Nico had left her, and while she forced them to tumble through the dark at a hundred miles an hour it seemed that he still had a destination in mind that he wouldn’t let go of. Lady knew he had to be able to hear the ocean waves by now, and the last thing she wanted was for them to appear in a room with Tramp, but she had no choice but to finally let go in exhaustion as her hold on reality slipped.

Light started to pierce the darkness and Lady was hit with a wave of regret that she didn’t recognize just before both her and Nico slammed onto a bed in a room she had never seen before. Just before she started to drift to sleep she heard an unfamiliar voice and saw a pair of sea green eyes that made her stomach churn.

“Nico?” and just the way that Nico’s voice slipped out of this boy’s mouth assured Lady that he was not there to hurt them. This boy loved Nico, even Lady could tell that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone liked this chapter! More will follow, and rather soon because I love these characters. Hopefully I will be able to find more time now than before, and let me know what you thought of it, good or bad, I love hearing from you guys!   
> -Megara aka ThroughTheFog


	4. One Night, Just let Me Forget

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After crashing in on Percy there are a lot of questions, for everyone. The only person seeming to have any fun is Lady. But hey, above a strip club who cant have fun? Percy also finally had a chance to confront Nico on a number of things that he has been thinking about over the past few years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nico and Percy moments! Also further character reveal of my OC, but I promise that it will be a slow build. I just had fun writing more Percy and Nico scenes. Sorry it took so long, again. A lot has been going on in my life so I hope you can all understand.   
> -Megara aka ThroughTheFog

Chapter 4: One Night, Just let Me Forget

Percy wasn’t sure what to do when two unknown figures came hurtling towards him at what seemed like the speed of light. His first instinct was to cover himself with his arms, but everything was moving so quickly he ended up catching one of the people who suddenly appeared in his room and he was sent flying out of the bed with them in his arms. The other figure tumbled into the bedside table and sent the small stack of books that had been there onto the floor.

A loud groan came from the figure that Percy hadn’t caught, and when Percy caught his breath he rolled the other figure off of him. It was a girl, her face covered in a mask, and she had long black hair that coated the floor he laid her on like ink. Just as he was standing up though he heard a familiar voice and was taken back. The second figure was a mere outline in the dimly lit room, but Percy would have recognized him anywhere. “Nico?” he nearly whispered and he felt the girl he had been holding fall limp on the floor as though she suddenly lost consciousness.

Nico sighed heavily as he pulled the string for the hanging light and knelt down to pick up the books, completely ignoring that he was in Percy’s room. Well, technically his room, but regardless the place where Percy had been sleeping. In fact Percy was still wearing nothing more than a long pair of pajama bottoms that hung low on his waist. “It was so nice of you to give the girl a cushy landing,” he groaned again and rubbed at his side where the table had dug into him.

“Well I didn’t expect you to come barging into where I was sleeping, let alone with a passenger. I didn’t think you liked to shadow travel with people.” Percy scrambled to his feet, minding the girl on the floor, and moved quickly toward Nico. It didn’t surprise him when Nico flinched away from him. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” he admitted shyly, knowing that he had to open up a little to get to know Nico.

The comment threw Nico off and he nearly knocked the books back off of the table before he forced himself to remember that there was nothing between him and Percy. There never could be. “She isn’t necessarily a passenger, if she is she has a nasty back seat driver habit.” He decided to just ignore what Percy had said and smiled a little at Lady who had fallen asleep on the floor. He watched Percy turn to look back at her and knew just by how he was walking towards her that he planned on picking her up and putting her into the bed. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Nico warned with a mischievous grin. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he had seen Lady sleep twice the entire week or so they had been traveling together. And even when she did sleep it wasn’t for very long. The two of them never spoke of it, but he could sense that she had nightmares, possibly as bad as the ones that plagued him after Tartarus. “She can be kind of feisty if you wake her up, and she is a very light sleeper.”

It made Nico laugh that Percy just rolled his eyes and looked back at Lady on the floor. She truly didn’t look like much of a threat but Nico knew better.  “If you wake her up I will hurt you,” his voice was darker, the urge to protect Lady more powerful than he ever thought, “I don’t want to but she hasn’t slept in days.”

“She the copilot?” Percy swallowed and stepped back from the girl. “The backseat driver?” Nico’s words had visibly hurt him but Percy was getting good at covering any evidence of feeling anything.

Nico just nodded his head and watched as Lady’s chest rose and fell. “I want you to take her back to camp. The government is hunting her, and part of that is my fault.”

A puzzled look came across Percy’s face. “You’re leaving again?” he looked back to the girl and then up toward Nico. “At least rest for the night.”

Even though Nico’s instincts told him to run right then and there he looked over to Lady and knew that after everything she had been through it wasn’t fair for him to leave her while she was unconscious. Even worse was thinking what she would do to him if he did that… Lady wasn’t very trusting, in fact Nico doubted that she trusted him, but they had the closest thing to a friendship that either of them could manage. Both broken beyond repair. “Yeah,” he smiled softly at her, “I guess I can stay for one night.”

“Thank the gods,” Percy didn’t even realize he was doing it until Nico was in his arms. He gripped the son of Hades tightly and rested his head into the crook of Nico’s neck. “I can’t believe you’re okay… No one had heard anything from you.”

“Umm…” Nico patted Percy’s back awkwardly and shifted in his firm grip. “Percy? Do you realize what you’re doing?”

Reality broke into focus around Percy and he was suddenly very conscious of Nico’s skin against his. The shallow breaths Nico was taking as he was held, even how his smell seemed to calm Percy down at the same time as exciting him and making him nervous. “Sorry,” he gripped Nico by the shoulders and pushed himself away but couldn’t bring himself to let go. “I just didn’t think I would ever see you again.”

Nico felt the pain in his chest swell and pushed it down before it bubbled up into his mouth. “Since when does that make you feel cuddly?” he chuckled but even Percy could tell that he didn’t mean it, there was no light in his eyes when he forced out a small smile and shook himself out of Percy’s grip. “Come on, I need to get some sleep. The two of us have been bouncing all over the United States the past week or so.”

“Who is she anyways? Last I heard you were supposed to be raiding a government sector and the row of buildings just sort of exploded before you got the chance to do anything,” Percy’s eyes were wide and Nico groaned, hoping that it hadn’t gotten out how badly they had failed at their rescue. He also wondered how many demigods they had managed to get back to New Rome, there had never been another moment in his life that he had been so surrounded by people like him.

Without touching her Nico knelt beside Lady and covered her with a blanket. He could feel Percy looking at him puzzled but he didn’t care, it didn’t matter to him that no one had ever seen him be affectionate with anyone other than Hazel. After everything he had put up with to cart Lady around she was practically a little sister to him. “This is Lady,” he sighed and stood up, “she was the source of the explosion actually. One of the governments closest guarded subjects, and she apparently decided that night that she was done being kept there.”

“So she just… Left?” Percy raised an eyebrow and Nico smiled as he nodded. “She just got tired of being there, blew up the complex, and left?”

“Exactly, at least from what I can gather. She has a very ‘fuck it, I’m done’ kind of attitude.” Nico laughed and sat down on the bed before he slipped off his shoes.

Percy eyed the way that Nico placed his shoes beside Lady’s things and rested back on the bed, more relaxed than he had ever seen Nico before. It nearly sparked jealousy in him as he watched a girl that Nico had barely known a week worm her way into his comfort zone when he had fought for years to try and get the boy to open up to him. “Don’t glare at her,” Nico warned him without even looking in his direction, “she may be able to take care of herself but she has been through a lot…”

“What do you mean?”

A loud sigh escaped Nico’s chest and he shrugged, “I can’t even really say… All I know is she was in there for a long time. They aren’t nice to their subjects in there, and she has absolutely nothing nice to say about herself even though she freed over a hundred people that day.” Without even acknowledging Percy’s existence Nico rolled to his side and watched Lady rest.

“Sounds like someone else I know,” Percy smiled and walked around the bed to get another look at this Lady. “What kind of name is Lady though?” he chuckled, “and don’t you think we should at least take off her mask for her, it can’t be comfortable to sleep in that thing.”

As if on cue Lady sat up straight as a pole and turned toward Percy’s voice. “The mask stays on.” Her voice was flat and as soon as she said what she needed to she laid back down, not even bothering to say goodnight or anything else. It wasn’t something Nico could find it in him to laugh about, he still wanted to see her face, find out if he knew what she was wanted for…

Percy didn’t seem happy about that. He turned to Nico with a glare that made it obvious he wanted to talk about something, but Nico yawned and stretched out on the bed. “Lady was the code name that the government gave her when they started working her, you can rest assured that you have two highly trained fighters at your side if anything happens tonight.”

With a huff Percy crossed his arms and stood at the foot of the bed where he stared awkwardly at the spot he had been sleeping in. There was no way that he was going to be able to sleep now that he had Nico laying there.

“Nervous about something?” Nico chuckled darkly and smiled from underneath the arm he was using to block the small amount of light that was penetrating the room’s darkness. It humored him to watch as Percy turned a bright pink and crossed his arms as he started to march around the side of the bed opposite Nico.

He was too tired by this point to even care what Percy was blushing about.

“Absolutely not,” he pouted and yanked back the covers of the bed to burrow into their warmth and keep some sort of barrier between him and Nico. “I’m still not sure how comfortable I am having someone else here when I don’t even know their real name…” he muttered and felt Nico shift sharply behind him.

“Well you’re not alone in not knowing her name,” Nico’s voice was cold and Percy turned to face him only to find Nico’s back to him. The room grew quiet and the light sputtered out above their heads, Percy took it all as a sign that saying anything against this Lady wasn’t going to bode well with Nico. Instead of pushing the subject he rolled back over and covered himself with the blankets as he waited for sleep to consume him.

 

 

Sleep was a rare and often feared thing that Lady experienced. Her mind would be thrown into overdrive and pain tore through her body as she dreamt of things she could never remember. Ever vision was a haze of green smoke, different sets of eyes passed through her mind and brought forth different emotions. And those were just the dreams she knew had to be her past…

Along with them came the soft morning lit eyes of the person who had helped her. The person she had grown to trust and opened up to. Her chest hurt each time she woke up with the phantom feeling of running her hand through soft red hair and the tingle of lips on hers that would never be there again. She remembered the family that had hid her away, fought for her even though she had broken their rule and started falling in love with someone whose soul shined so brightly to her it was impossible to ignore. Heartbreak filled her as images of their bodies filled her mind with hate, such powerful anger that she had murdered five people in an instant and would never be able to rid her hands of the blood that stained them.

That night it was those people who whispered to her as she slept. Soft voices telling her how happy they were to find her, have her be a part of their lives… She had betrayed every single one of them though by letting the government find her. That family, those connections, were the only things that made her believe in a life without her past. It was then that she had started to feel her memories return to her, filtering through her like water. But all of that had been taken away by a bullet to the back of the head, at least in the fighting she had managed to take out most of those who had ruined the lives of the innocent people close to her.

But she still remembered being held, being loved, and all of that was gone now. All of that had been a fantasy she was blessed with for three months.

She woke up gasping for the last person to hold her. It didn’t surprise her that Nico and Percy were both still fast asleep, in fact she was glad to see Nico so content for once. It was so easy to see how deeply they cared for one another, something that she herself knew could be the most dangerous treasure to have. She tiptoed past them and found the trap door under her toes.

Wandering around this shack had to be better than awkwardly lying awake in the dark.

To her surprise the hinges didn’t squeak as loudly as she had thought they would. There was a ladder on the floor but the drop wasn’t too far so Lady leapt down and turned to look back at the open space above her. With a quick bat of her hand a small current of wind pushed the door shut without a sound and Lady turned to see where she was.

It was a short hallway, a couple doors off to the side but she didn’t bother trying to open them. At the end of the hall was a staircase that led down into what appeared to be a strip club. It was run down, and Lady had a feeling that all the dancers here were low power demigods, or really good at hiding. She had been in a few of these types of places before and she didn’t have many pleasant experiences.

The first person she noticed was a young, thin girl flitting around the tables and cleaning them. There were no customers in, Lady looked at the old grandfather clock behind the bar and if it was right then it was eight and probably morning. Light tried to push through the curtains and dust permeated air but everything still looked dingy. They had lights on low and Lady assumed that they were on the entire day but no one would be in for at least a few hours. The girl that noticed her had large brown eyes and a narrow frame with a busty chest, her heels added to her height but she was still rather tall, and she came rushing towards Lady the moment she saw her.

“Is Nico here?” her voice was high and she looked up the stairs to see if the boy had followed Lady down but Lady just laughed softly.

“Yea he is here, but he is in bed right now. We’ve only been here for maybe an hour and a half.” She leaned in closer to the girl whose small blue dress contrasted with her pink hair and lightly tanned skin. “You are far too pretty to be in a place like this.” The pink blush that rose on the girl’s cheeks made Lady smile.

 The girl gripped her hands behind her back and giggled, “And you are wearing a mask that ensures I can’t return the compliment,” leaning forward she brushed a strand of Lady’s hair back and whispered into her ear, “are you here to take me away?”

“Depends,” Lady stepped closer and took the girl by the hand, “would you like for me to do that for you?” she left the question hanging in the air and just as she hoped the girl gave her a name. Kay. “It would be my pleasure to make you forget where you are Kay.”

 

There was something about physical contact that enticed Lady. She wasn’t sure what that could say about her past, but she knew that in the moment it was both a terrifying and exhilarating action. She had never gone farther than she was comfortable, but Lady reveled in relinquishing herself to someone else. Nothing brought more life to her than to confront her fear, and while it may not be letting someone get close to her emotionally she allowed this girl to explore her on a physical level. The two of them tumbled into a dark room before Lady allowed Kay to take her hands and pin them above her head after she had carefully removed the mask and made sure that Kay couldn’t see her still.

Both of them fell back on the bed, and Lady only partially accepted the fact that Kay was doing this out of the hope that she would be taken away from this place once and for all. Lady could see to it that it happened she was sure, but in that moment Lady wanted nothing more than to feel wanted.

Kay’s tongue flicked out of her mouth and against Lady’s bottom lip just before she bit down. Lady let out a soft moan and kissed Kay back the moment her lip was released. She leaned up and bit at Kay’s lip as well, hearing a gasp escape the other girl’s mouth she smiled and was suddenly pushed back down against the mattress where Kay bit at her neck. Lady knew she was making ungodly noises but it was great to, if only for a moment, let herself go. To her there was no emotion here, only a control that she didn’t have for once. She squealed as Kay gripped both her wrists in one hand and let her other hand wander down the side of Lady’s body. Kay took her waist and lifted her torso up as she sucked at the pink skin on her neck where she had just been biting.

“This was sudden,” Kay whispered in Lady’s ear and shivers shook her entire body before she managed to lean up, kiss Kay and smile.

“What can I say,” Lady’s voice was breathy as she tried to speak, “I have a thing for brown eyes.” In the dark lit room it was nearly impossible to make out what either of them looked like, but Kay traced the bridge of Lady’s nose with her own and watched as the shine of Lady’s eyes disappeared with each blink. It was amazing what Kay could detect about her; nothing very identifying but she could make out the small and slightly unturned curve of Lady’s nose, the long length of her eyelashes, how smooth her skin was, and how her lips felt like velvet and were plump after being bitten.

“Have you been in here before?” Kay whispered breathily against the skin of Lady’s neck.

Lady hitched her hips into the air, gasping slightly as Kay bit at her neck again, sucking hard enough against her skin that Lady knew she was going to have a bruise. “I was stuck in a place similar once,” she admitted, “but I don’t like to think about those days.” And before Kay could ask her anything else Lady covered her mouth with her own and sighed as Kay kissed her back. Her arms were still pinned above her head but Lady was able to stretch up into the kiss and deepen it.

She felt Kay smirk against her lips and wondered what was so funny when suddenly Kay was straddling her and lifting up the thin fabric of Lady’s shirt. The cool brush of air against her skin was nothing compared to the shock of pleasure Kay’s fingers sent coursing through her as she traced random lines against Lady’s skin. When she felt Kay’s nail dip into the thick scar at her side she shivered and Kay devoured her again.

Kay could feel the girl beneath her pull back as her fingers danced over the hem of the black skirt she was wearing. She didn’t completely pull away but Kay could sense that she was uncomfortable so she pulled Lady up close to her, letting her arms go, and brought her into her lap. “You’re beautiful,” she whispered as Lady kissed her back and rested her knees on either side of Kay. “Will you let me see your face?”

It wasn’t the first time Lady had been asked that, she didn’t even skip a beat as she moved from kissing one side of Kay’s neck to the other. Her lips brushed against the shell of Kay’s ear and she felt the girl tremble underneath her, gripping her to hold her closer, and she loved how Kay made sure she knew who was dominant. “That would take all the mystery out of it,” her voice was husky and Kay pulled her chin up to kiss her feverishly.

“You are nothing but mystery,” Kay breathed as they parted and she tried to make out what color Lady’s eyes were as the sparkled in the dark.

“Then I’m doing something right,” Lady smirked and Kay threw her back down onto the mattress. Together they laid side by side, both breathing hard, and they just let themselves hold one another. Lady felt so… safe. Not because she trusted Kay, if fact the idea of Kay staying with her for more than five more minutes terrified her, but for the brief moment she could pretend that everything was different. She could imagine that Kay and her could be something, that they could protect each other and never have to really worry about anything. Moments like this were a blessing that Tramp had never understood, Tramp thought he could protect her and Lady had been so afraid for him that they eventually almost never touched one another because it created a moment ten times more powerful than what she was having with Kay and Lady was never sure if she would be able to break it.

Moments like this reminded her of the time she spent with May. Before the government had tracked them down. During the time when even though they both knew that Lady had power May would never possess it didn’t matter because they were both willing to put their life on the line for the other. Even though it came to proving that multiple times, before Lady wasn’t able to protect May, things had been as close to perfect as anyone could get these days. Lady knew she had been in love and having that ripped away from her made her crave it in times when things seemed hopeless. She wasn’t foolish enough to let it last though…

 

 

Nico woke up first, which was no surprise to him. Percy was sleeping soundly beside him and had even wrapped his arms around one of Nico’s in a way that was too comfortable to be safe. He almost ripped his appendage back violently but knew that it was better to let Percy sleep so he worked to slowly loosen Percy’s grip and slip his arm out. In his sleep Percy grunted, holding Nico to him like he was trying to cut off circulation, and when Nico finally got free he was rewarded with a broken expression and a sad sigh that made his heart lurch.

But Nico was good at pushing down these feelings by now. Wiggling out of the bed as smoothly as he could to keep the mattress steady Nico grabbed everything he needed and was just about to leave when he noticed something.

Lady was gone.

“Fuck,” Nico cursed under his breath. “I don’t have time to play hide in seek Lady.” But from what he could tell the girl wasn’t even in the room. His heart started to race. All of her things were still there, but the makeshift bed he had made for her was abandoned.

He was starting to pace when Percy jumped forward in bed, probably hearing the house creak as the wind blew. Nico locked eyes with him, hoping that Percy would just collapse back in bed when he saw no one was there, but the shadows around him apparently weren’t enough to hide him from a sleep deprived Perseus.

Percy caught Nico’s gaze and narrowed his eyes.

“You look like you hate me,” Nico told him casually, surprised when Percy crossed his arms over his bare chest.

The fact that Nico still felt Percy hated him hurt more than Percy was expecting. “I just hate what you’re doing.” He huffed, his mind still fuzzy from being half asleep.

Taken back Nico looked up and down his body, trying to figure out if he was doing something he didn’t know about. He had caught himself holding his sword before, spinning it to calm his nerves, but his hands were empty. “You’re standing in those shadows…” Percy’s voice broke his train of thought and Nico looked up. Percy was out of bed now, walking towards him as one may approach a frightened animal, “always just out of my reach where you can get away.” And before Nico knew it Percy lunged forward and gripped Nico by the wrist. “You’re always where you can run away.”

Nico wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Percy was looking at him in a way he had never experienced before… “I’m a grown man now Percy, I can take care of myself,” but when he tried to pull his wrist back the gentleness of Percy’s hand closed up and held him fast.

“I never thought you couldn’t take care of yourself,” Percy moved closer to Nico and wound one arm around him, holding as much of Nico as he could because he didn’t ever want to let Nico go. “But you don’t have to do everything on your own… I want you to stay…”

“You-you’ve,” Nico wanted to stutter but he was even to shocked for that. Percy was half asleep and holding him like a teddy bear, “you’ve never asked me to…” he confessed, because regardless of anything else he knew that he would do what Percy asked him to.

Percy felt his heart race, “then will you? Stay, please,” and he pulled back from Nico to see the other boy, no man, in front of him. 

A nod was all that Percy needed, and without any thought he pulled Nico into him and rested his lips against the son of Hades. Nico stiffened against him and suddenly Percy was pushed away and fell to the floor, the shock waking him up.

“What the hell Jackson?!” Nico yelled at him.

An angry Nico, tingly lips, and a sore ass were all Percy needed to be able to piece together what had happened and he froze. “I- I-,” shaking his head he looked at Nico who had mix of surprised, angered, and possibly disgusted look on his face. “I’m sorry. I know- I’m not your type but- I guess… I was just hoping…”

Everything was silent for what felt like eternity while Nico tried to process what had just happened. And in that time Percy had woken up enough to start trying to defend himself, and what better way that to get angry with Nico? He didn’t mean to, but he wanted to pretend that he hadn’t done something so incredibly stupid. Again.

“What were you doing up?!” he growled, “I thought you were staying for the night. The whole night I assumed. But I guess you were planning on sneaking out again! Gods, I thought you had changed… Why didn’t you leave?”

Suddenly Nico remembered Lady. He didn’t have time to play Percy’s games right then, he had to find… “Lady,” he whispered and headed for the small bathroom within the room.

That seemed to shake Percy. “What?” he looked over to where the girl had been sleeping, “she’s gone?!” whipping his head up to follow Nico as he paced the small room they were in, “I thought you said you trusted her!”

“I do!” Nico snapped, “She must have been taken. There have been a number of agents that have tried to get us…”

“And neither of us woke up to it? There isn’t even a sign of struggle!” Percy threw a shirt on and started to move about the room with Nico. “And the ladder is still up so she never went downstairs.”

“Downstairs!” Nico perked up at that, “she is probably downstairs!”

“I just said the ladder is still-,” but Nico threw open the small hatch and jumped down to the floor without even listening to him. Percy rolled his eyes and followed him, dropping the ladder so that they would be able to get back up. Not all of them had fancy shadow traveling powers.

As it turned out one of the girls had seen Lady about an hour ago, and to further shock Percy the girl said that she had seen her go off with Kay. Kay the waitress that had helped him when he had gotten there.

“I’d knock if I were you,” she giggled and pointed to one of the doors.

Nico seemed to be in serious big brother mode because he walked right up to the door, knocked twice, and opened up the door more violently than Percy had ever seen anyone treat a door. It had been just enough time for Lady to toss her mask back on before light cut through her cover and Kay tried to catch a glimpse but wasn’t luck enough. Lady jumped to her feet, adjusting her clothes casually and Nico stormed over to her. “You scared me half to death!” he yelled at her and Percy watched Kay pull her knees up to her chest as she observed them. She had died her hair pink at some point in the night and Percy couldn’t help but think that it looked rather cute.

“I wanted to let you sleep,” Lady shrugged and Percy’s attention was instantly back on her. She barely seemed to acknowledge that Nico was angry, like she wasn’t the least bit afraid of him. “I am sorry I didn’t leave a note, part of me was hoping I would be done before you woke up.”

“And exactly what was it you were doing?” Nico looked over her and then looked over the waitress that was in the bed. “Do you have any idea how this makes you look?” He crossed his arms and shook his head at her.

Percy watched in fascination as Lady mirrored Nico’s stance, “And do you have any idea how little I care how I look? It’s my life thank you!” she had to be a child of Hades if she could handle Nico like that, Percy had only ever seen Hazel stand up to Nico. And Annabeth, but she was a special case. Even Jason tended to give him space when he was actually angry. “Kay was just asking me if I could take her away from this place.”

“Oh, into the dark?” Nico raised an eyebrow at her but Lady just rolled her eyes even though she knew he couldn’t see it. “Are you planning on taking her away from here then?”

“Actually,” Kay’s voice was a squeak as she stood up from the bed and moved towards the two of them, “I am fine here…”

Lady looked at her speechless. Kay moved towards her and smiled, “Sometimes people may say anything just to talk to you,” she whispered, “I wish I could have actually gotten to know you.” When Lady didn’t say anything Kay rolled her eyes, “you’re not the only one who likes to forget for a few minutes,” sighing Kay left the room.

Suddenly Lady was alone with Nico and Percy, who had his mouth hanging open in shock.

“Well do you have anything else to say?” Nico looked like he was about to start tapping his foot on the floor if Lady didn’t give him an answer.

Huffing Lady put her hands on her hips, “I said that I was sorry. You of all people should know that I can take care of myself though,” and then she pushed past him and Percy to head back to the room upstairs.

“Gods,” Nico exclaimed and headed after her, pulling Percy along behind him, “I have no idea who she thinks she is! Being able to act like that.”

Percy couldn’t help but laugh, “It must be a child of Hades thing.” When Nico gave him a confused look he just laughed, “she reminds me of you, a more selfish version of you at least. Figure it comes with Hades territory.”

“She isn’t a child of Hades,” Nico grumbled, “and her and I are nothing alike! I have no idea who her parent is. She is a blessed child though, so we are dealing with multiple godly bloods here.”

“Really?” Percy perked up at that, “I always find those demigods interesting. What else can she do?”

“Besides be a giant pain in my ass? I’m not entirely sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I hope you guys like this. Yes Lady kind of has an interesting way of coping with things... More Percico is to come in the next chapter so I hope you guys will read.   
> Also let me know who you think Lady may be?  
> And will Percy and Nico get a chance to work out their issues? I certainly hope so...
> 
> -Megara aka ThroughTheFog


	5. We Move to the Alter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady doesn't want to travel with Nico and Percy anymore, but everyone knows that those two aren't partial to just leaving someone behind. In a mix of events the three of them end up somewhere unexpected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry my updates are so sporadic. Nothing has been forgotten, just some life issues I'm working through. Thank you guys for sticking with me! 
> 
> -ThroughTheFog aka Megara

Chapter 5: We Move to The Alter

“Hey,” Percy called out as he and Nico started after Lady. For her small stature she certainly moved quick and the two of them were having trouble keeping up. “Wait up!” beside him Nico was fuming and all Percy could think was this was how Nico responded to standing up to him. Percy wondered if they should keep Lady with them now, she obviously had some anger issues not to mention that Percy still knew absolutely nothing about her and that was concerning.

Lady scrambled up the ladder and marched over to her things with a huff, “and why should I do that?” she knelt down to grab her bag and Nico jumped closer to her and grabbed her wrist. “Let go of me!” she snapped at him but he held her in place.

“So you can shadow travel away from me?” a wicked grin flickered across his face, “not unless you promise to stay in this room.”

Lady tried to pull away from him but her held her tight, “what would you do with a promise anyways? I could always break it.”

Nico narrowed his gaze at her and lifted his other hand to her shoulder just as Percy came up behind her. “You won’t,” Nico’s words fell just as Percy rested a hand on the back of Lady’s head.

“If I think your promise isn’t honest then the mask comes off,” he warned her and Nico rolled his eyes.

He could feel Lady chuckle under his touch, “and how will you know if I’m being honest or not?”

“Simple,” he looked down at her with a smile, “the blood in a person’s body increases speed when they lie.”

Now she stilled, “a child of Poseidon?” her words weren’t filled with fear but Percy nearly took it that way. She turned and looked up at him through her mask and she knew that he wouldn’t be able to see it but her face was broken by pain just from seeing his face. For the first time she actually looked at him, “you look like him…” she whispered so low that Percy didn’t catch it. The few times that Lady had seen Tramp had been some of the most terrifying moments of her life simply because she was so attracted to him. Percy wasn’t the same way, sure they had similar eyes and ink black hair that fell soft against their head in a mass of unruly waves that stuck out at odd angles but Tramp was extremely tall and his eyes were dark green nearly every time she saw him. Where he was pale olive skin tone closer to Nico, Percy was a healthy tan. They were both built similarly but Lady didn’t get the compression on her chest when she saw him like she did when she was in Tramp’s presence.

“Lady!” Nico shook her out of her trance and she whipped her head around to see him.

“Sorry…” she shook her head again and blinked through what should have been tears, “I just…”

“Did you remember something?” the hopeful look on Nico’s face hurt Lady and she wanted so badly to have never met him… She needed to leave before she got them hurt like she did May…

Percy stepped back from her and looked at how Nico held her now. Instead of trying to keep her from leaving there was this spark of hope in his eyes that shined the same way it had when Percy had gotten his memories back and seen him again. A look that, at the time, Percy had been to ignorant to notice. “What are you talking about?” he asked to both of them.

At first Lady just let Nico hold her. It was selfish but she missed that feeling and she didn’t even remember it. The feeling of someone who cared, someone who wanted to hold her. And deep down that may have been all that she wanted in that moment was to be held and told that everything was going to be okay even though she knew it wasn’t.

May had been the one to tell her, what seemed like forever ago, that it was wrong to tell someone that things get better. _Things may not get better,_ she had said, _but you will get better._ For some reason those words had meant the most to Lady, and even when everything fell apart and she shouldn’t have cared she still did and May’s words repeated themselves. Like some sickening mantra that was set to loop in her head for eternity. Lady clutched at the sides of her head, torn between trying to rip the memories from her and cradling them in her heart forever.

“Lady doesn’t have any memories Percy,” Nico snapped, “that’s why I told you that you weren’t alone in knowing her name last night. Gods can’t you have some tact?”

While they spoke Lady sunk to her knees and both Percy and Nico followed her to the floor. Nico wrapped his arms around the girl and Percy watched as she froze up at his touch. She still wasn’t crying but she was breathing through clenched teeth and Percy knew just from her reaction that she was either trying to remember or remembering something painful. He reached out towards her but drew back, the last thing he wanted was to spark fear in her. “Nico you should know that if anyone would have understood this it would have been me.”

“Then you should know that it isn’t really my business to tell.” Nico let his fingers slip through the long black strands of Lady’s hair and she pushed against his chest but he forced her to relax. He wasn’t sure how well it worked but she didn’t fight him too hard after that.

Once she finally got away from his hold she looked back at Percy and blocked out any similarities he had to Tramp. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” she sighed, “the government was going to give me my memories back but…”

“But what?” Percy asked curiously but softly. When he had lost his memories he would have done nearly anything to get them back. He travelled to Alaska for gods sake!

Lady looked back and forth between both Nico and Percy. “They wanted me to do something… I just couldn’t… I’m not even sure if I wanted my memories back anymore.”

To that Percy didn’t say anything. He hadn’t ever been in a position where he thought he was better off without his memories, but he knew that it couldn’t be a good place to be. Lady probably saw this as a point to start over. After a while of silence he was fully sitting on the floor watching her. “Is that why you keep the mask on? So no one can ever see you and possibly recognize you.” She nodded and Percy sighed, looking at Nico he shook his head. “Sometimes even if people recognize you they will play dumb.” He told her and there was still a tinge of bitterness in his words regardless of how long ago it had been. “But do you want to know my opinion?” Percy had never talked about this with anyone because the only person who could understand what it was like was him and maybe Jason. “I lost my memories and I ran into an old friend that I couldn’t quite remember… He looked at me like he had just met me but I could tell he knew me and I struggled for weeks for his name. It was always in the back of my mind, a whisper that I couldn’t quite make out clearly. For weeks I couldn’t think about anything but his face and it drove me insane.” Lady looked at him as though she knew the feeling all too well. “Regardless of how nice this fresh start may seem, you won’t be able to get rid of that feeling. Having the memories right outside your reach.”

Part of Lady wanted to punch Percy in his condescending face, but too much of her knew that he was right. She glared at him instead, hoping that he could feel the disgusted look on her face and that it hid the pain she knew she was feeling.

“You know he is right,” Nico whispered to her and his voice nearly broke. She wondered if he had ever lost his memory as well, maybe it was more common than she thought it was. “You can try to hide behind that tough exterior but having those hanging memories can be more torturous than anything. It can make you do stupid things, but you can get past all that and move on.”

“If you let yourself.” Percy’s words echoed and Lady wondered just who he was talking to.

But regardless of what they said, what they told her, it didn’t change the fact that she never could forgive herself for some of the things she had done. She couldn’t because it went against something inside her that told her at one point she was better than that; but then again she was wanted so she obviously wasn’t that great of a person. Maybe now she could make a fresh start and be the hope that May thought she was.

“I can’t…” her voice was so defeated that it actually shocked both of the men at her side. “I can’t forgive myself… All the horrible things I’ve done, and what I was so close to doing…” she caught both of them staring at her and realized that she was opening up to them. She was putting them in danger.

She was going to get them killed.

Jumping to her feet the shadows started to swirl like smoke around her. She tried to pull free of Nico but he held her tight in his grip and pulled her into his arms.

“Oh no you don’t,” Percy lunged forward and grabbed onto Nico’s shoulder as they all were consumed in the darkness of the realm of shadows.

Percy was holding onto Nico so tightly that it almost hurt his shoulder and once they were in the abys of black he only barely noticed as Percy wrapped his arms around him and Lady who was now being held by both of them. She fought to try and lose them but she couldn’t bring herself to hurt either of them to get away. So the three of them were sent spinning out of control as both Nico and Lady tried to pick a destination.

When they were finally thrown from the shadows they all crashed into the cold ocean. It didn’t matter that it was the middle of summer, outside Maine the waters barely got above freezing and from what Percy could see this particular spot had been frozen over by someone as powerful as himself. With his arms still around both Lady and Nico he drew enough oxygen around them to survive while he changed the current and forced them to the surface. Lady helped him so the Nico could keep breathing and he glared at her as she revealed another secret. Just how much more was she holding out from him?

They were thrown onto a stone alter that had obviously been built by someone even though it branched out from the side of a cliff. It had walls of rock that reached down to the sea bed and on the surface there was a large hole surrounded but millions of splintering cracks. Whatever this had meant to keep in had escaped.

“What the hell were you thinking?!” Percy pulled Nico up off the edge of the alter and rolled him as far as he could before the boy started coughing up water hunched over on his hands and knees. “You could have killed us!”

“Then you shouldn’t have come with me!” Lady yelled at them both. “I warned you that anyone close to me get hurt! Just leave me alone!”

Both of them were standing now while Nico hacked up the last bit of ocean he had in his lungs. He staggered to his feet and stepped between Lady and Percy, the two of them together had started to create a storm that he did not want to be in the middle of. “Guys come on, stop it!” he coughed again and Lady stumbled as she had started to form a shank of ice in her hand and just realized that she didn’t want to hurt either of them. Nico’s coughing got worse and both Percy and she rushed to his side as he started to shiver.

“I’m not just going to let you leave,” he told Lady, “you deserve to be taken somewhere safe.” Turning his attention to Percy he smiled, “come on Perce,” he laughed softly, “I will be fine. You’ve seen me look far worse. And I made a promise to stay this time.”

“He fought too hard in the water,” Percy shook his head, “we need to get him some rest after that shadow travel and choking on the water.”

“I’m fine,” Nico stood up and looked at Lady, he was breathing heavily but other than that he seemed to be doing okay now. One last hack of water and he smiled at them, “but we should probably find—

“Hey!” someone shouted from the shore at them and all three turned to see the lean figure of a boy running towards them. No, not running. From his back sprouted a pair of snow white wings and he flew just above the current towards them, lifting up sharp once he got close and landing with enough force to make the alter shake. “Who are you?”

He was tall, taller than both Percy and Nico and he had golden eyes that shone like the sun. It took only a second for Percy to recognize him. “Gage!” The two of them broke out in identical grins and Gage swung an arm around Percy to give him a quick hug. “What are you doing out here?” Percy asked him.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he stopped when he saw Nico and a new smile split his face. “Nico! You got out of that explosion all right?”

Nico nodded and felt Lady slip herself behind him to keep from being seen. But it was too late, Gage raised an eyebrow at him and pointed behind his back while mouthing the words _Who’s that?_ But Nico just smiled behind him at her and stepped to the side, “Its okay Lady,” he told her, “Gage is a bit eccentric but he is an alright guy.”       

Gage stepped closer to her and looked at her mask and then at Nico. “Is she a refugee from the explosion?”

“Actually,” Nico shrugged his shoulders like he wasn’t sure what to say at first, “she kind of caused it…”

He stepped back for a moment and looked Lady over with a critical eye. “Well let’s get her dry and see what we can do.”

“One question though,” Nico stepped forward and took Lady’s hand to lead her after Gage in a protective manner. Gage turned back to face them but Lady actually responded.

“Where are we?”

A look of shock flashed over Gage’s face for a moment, like he forgot where they were, but then he looked around them and all the happiness drained from his face. On the stone alter was what Lady could only think was a ring of silver standing upwards on the far end and everything else was very plain and simple. She looked at how sad Gage got when he looked around and wondered if she shouldn’t have asked.

“This was the last place we had my cousin’s body before she was…” his words drifted off and Percy didn’t have to ask.

This was where the government came and killed Megara Jason, The First Born.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed it! Let me know what you thought, all feedback is good feedback! 
> 
> -ThroughTheFog aka Megara


	6. Uncomfortable Situations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How awkward can things get? Well if anyone can find out it is probably Nico.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! Absence galore with me I suppose! Talk about a hectic few months. Sorry for the wait, but I promise Percico fluff and smut so that makes up for it, right?  
> -ThroughTheFog aka Megara

Chapter 6: Uncomfortable Situations

The worse part of how Megara had been killed was the fact that it was nearly impossible to prove, and therefore there wasn’t even a legal route for them to take if they could. Sarah had been the one to vent out her frustrations about that to Percy one day after a particularly tough lesson with Annabeth as she tried to explain how there were mortals in the government that knew about the blessed demigods and HYBRID while the rest of the demigod population had been kept in the dark. For whatever reason Annabeth had thought that after everything they had gone through that at the very least there would have been one god that told them the truth, Percy was far more accepting of the idea that they were all primarily assholes that had rare bursts of decency. Jeremy had promised Percy that it was more that any child of Athena hated to feel so oblivious, and Sarah was too much like Annabeth to really help her since they were both so blunt.

So as they followed after Gage all that Percy could think was that this man was one of so many that Percy had been kept from. His father, who had not had any other children had actually been lying to him the whole time. That had been one of the first things that Percy had done, confronting his father the second he could for numerous reasons. Poseidon wasn’t siding with Ares so Percy had been able to calm down about that, but after that it had been and straight stream of questions that he wanted answers to only couldn’t figure out how to ask them. The one that he managed to get out was ‘Why?’ and that caused his father to sigh and look more defeated than Percy had ever seen him. In truth Percy had been meant to go to the island, only his mother had wanted to keep him hidden. Since there was no other godly blood in him it was easier for him to blend into the mortal world and when he had to have protection it was easier to assimilate into Camp Half Blood. The island was full of too many children who were found way too early and Poseidon had never wanted fun loving Percy to become a mindless soldier.

Gage had died because of a deal he had to make with the Gods, a deal that would save the one person he loved. An old friend was all the information on that Percy had learned. It was hard to believe that the Gods could be even more ruthless than what he had witnessed in his own life. The man floated ahead of them and they all looked over the choppy waves of the ocean to where more people stood. A girl with curly red hair stood out in the dull backdrop of a forest and she waved over to them, beside her was a familiar figure that Percy figured had to be Prema and then suddenly she disappeared and reappeared behind them.

“Looks like you have gone and gotten yourself into quite a state,” she joked at Nico and gripped his upper arm with a grin. Behind her jokes though he could tell she was worried. “As for you,” turning she looked straight at Percy, “next time you leave it would be nice to have some notice. All we need is for another one of us to go missing.”

Nico gulped as her grip tightened and he knew she was going to shadow travel. “Please be gentle,” he asked and looked at her. They were about the same height and she looked so much like Bianca, a Spanish version that had been broken far more that Bianca ever looked. But still, it was another person who could share in his feelings of isolation. Hazel had always been far too likeable to fully relate to him but Prema was someone he could lose time venting with.

As the shadows around her started to consume them both she pulled him close, “pansy,” she mocked softly before they were both gone.

Percy looked at Lady awkwardly, she was standing behind where Nico had been standing, Prema hadn’t even noticed her in the haze of shadows that had surrounded her. Gage was no longer hovering, instead simply standing and facing them. Percy looked back and forth between the two of them, seeing the unease that he shared towards the unknown girl mirrored in the angel’s eyes. To an extent he was grateful to no longer feel like the only one who questioned her intentions but on the other he felt a need to defend the fact that in a few ways she was like him. Something told him though that she knew more about herself than she was letting on.

“I can only carry you over one at a time,” he smirked at Percy, “Guess you get to make your way back on your own and I get the girl,” with a wink he stepped forwards and held his hand out to Lady. Percy could tell that she didn’t want to take it, almost as though the very thought scared her, but she was also tired from the shadow fight she had just had with Nico. “I won’t bite,” Gage’s voice was joking but Lady stiffened up at the sound of them.

Percy, unlike Nico, didn’t feel a need to save Lady. He would have been content with letting her stay on the island almost if he didn’t get the vibe that she wasn’t trying to do them any harm. And there was also Nico to think about; while Lady may make Percy uneasy she had made a friend in Nico and Percy didn’t want to break anything they had managed to piece back together. “I think she may be more comfortable with me,” reaching out he motioned for her to follow, falling just short of taking her hand. The choice was all she needed before she latched onto him and started for the water.

The ground beneath them suddenly shook and Percy grabbed for his sword as Lady reached towards her boot for something but Gage just turned in shock before shouting.

“What that hell Jake?”

A boy, presumable Jake, was standing at the edge of the water looking out at them. His black hair whipped around his face in the wind and he stood ankle deep in the freezing water wearing only a pair of black jeans he had rolled up and a bright green shirt. The waters around him were the choppiest, his entire body still as everything else shook, and then suddenly he was running.

Ice formed quickly over the water as he sprinted towards them, easily forming a path in a way that not even Percy had seen before. It took a lot of energy to turn water to ice, Percy could only do it in bursts, but this boy was doing it without breaking a sweat as he ran towards them. “Lady!” he said her name like it was a question and Percy could feel her try to pull free of him but he held her tight. She was nearly shaking as he got closer but Percy knew that if there were ever a chance to find anything out about her it would be now.

“Lady it’s me!” his voice was so elated that Percy almost felt bad that Lady was shaking like a leaf. “You didn’t come find me, I thought… Well I thought the worst,” he moved closer to her, to touch her, and Lady tore her had free so violently that Percy was surprised she didn’t seem in pain.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped at him and the look on his face changed to one of confusion.

“My best friend was… Well… This was where she was taken from us and killed…” his voice grew sad and Jake looked nearly guilty as he explained. “I just wanted to see it for myself… try to figure out where we go from here… I wanted her to be remembered…”

Lady shook her head, the mask gleaming in the low sunlight, “I told you to get out of the war if you had the chance. You have a life ahead of you… Your daughter-“

“Is safer without me,” he stood taller and Percy could see age to him. He wasn’t old by any means, maybe twenty two, but he looked much older at the mention of his daughter. “The government is looking for me right now, and they want her back. The more distance I put between the two of us right now the better. She is where someone can protect her.”

“You’re the one that saved my niece,” Gage cut in and stared at Lady as though she had suddenly turned to gold. When Jake nodded Gage rushed her and she didn’t have time to react before she found herself enveloped in strong arms that made her entire body feel safe. She felt… at home.

The sudden thought shook her from her day dream and she pushed him back. “You don’t have to thank me.” She assured him.

Percy looked between the three of them and shook his head. “So… I know Gage,” he pointed at Gage as he tried to piece together every part of the puzzle. “And your name is Jake…” he pointed again and Jake nodded. “Like The First Born’s soulmate?” Another nod. “That means that your daughter,” he cradled his arms and Jake rolled his eyes, “is his niece,” another pointing gesture, “and so… that would mean… Megara?” when both their faces fell Percy had it together, “Megara had a daughter?!” 

At that the two boys froze and their faces turned to Percy with a look that let him know that this wasn’t known information. The both of them signed a cut along their throats and Gage lifted a finger to his lips in a shooshing motion. “If you wouldn’t mind keeping your voice down.”

“But-,“ Percy started to speak and realized how easily it would be for the gods to hear what they were saying. He had so many questions though, how many people knew about her daughter? How old was her daughter? How had she had a daughter? Why was the government trying to find her? Too many questions piled up in his head but he knew better than to try asking them all at once.

Lady came to his rescue though. She stared at the two boys in front of them and cleared her throat. “I’m sorry but I’m a little lost… Why is all of this such a big deal? I mean it was just a baby after all. No offense but all they do is cry and slowly kill off your dreams.”

That made everyone pause for a moment, they turned toward her slowly but there wasn’t much that they could say to argue it.

Jake smirked after the shock wore off. “I never really saw myself as a parent,” he sighed, “I didn’t mind some children but, well let’s just say that I am taking the gamble of being a father for her.” It was surprising how quickly he remembered Lady’s lack of filter, most people would never dream of saying something like that to a new father.

She had to wonder, after all this time with him, if he was talking about a duty to the baby or the woman that had to be the baby’s mother. Tramp had always been closed off about her but she had seen his mood change when he did speak of her. He was notorious within the compound to sleep around, !and Lady and witnessed that during the times they had been on missions, but when he spoke of _her_ he always seemed to transform into this wonderful and nearly perfect person.

“Are you guys coming or what?” the head of bright red hair across the ocean from them shouted. Gage instantly smiled and whirled around to grab Percy.

“Alright, Lady?” Jake held out his hand but Gage pushed it down.

“Actually,” Percy could hear the still lingering skepticism in Gage’s tone, “I was hoping you could take Percy. He isn’t exactly partial to flying as I’m sure you can relate.”

His face seemed to fall but Jake smiled at Percy as friendly as anyone and shrugged. “Yea, I can get that, it takes something big to get my feet off the ground.”

Percy chuckled, “Tell me about it,” he thought back to Gaea and laughed a bit harder, “there was a point where it took a lot to get me out of the water.” As he spoke he watched Jake turn the water ahead of them to ice and the two of them walked over it with ease, leaving Gage with Lady.

“Don’t worry,” Gage stepped closer to Lady and hooked an arm under each of her shoulders, essentially turning her into bait. “I am not a huge fan of the idea of watching a lady try and walk on that ice,” stopping for a moment he laughed, “no pun intended by the way. How did you get the names Lady and Tramp by the way?” Before she could answer though he tightened his hold, “Up, up and away!” his voice and laugh settled over her as his wings thrust down and they were launched off the alter towards the sky. The feeling was familiar, and for more than one reason, but she forced herself not to dwell on it. The control she held over the winds was nowhere near powerful enough for her to have ever flown on her own.

As he held her Gage wondered when the last time she ate was, much like Jake there was a quality to Lady that nearly screamed that she had been underfed for weeks. It was difficult for specialists to lose or gain weight so when Jake had come back to them with bones poking out at odd angles and his stomach recessed it was hard for them to fathom just how long he would have had to be starved to become like that. Not to mention the burns that Gage knew they must share. All of the demigods that had been taken into those horrid camps had been tortured, even if they offered their help, and when they had lost contact with Jake they had almost labeled him a traitor. Had labeled him a traitor in fact, only to hear from him three weeks later about the baby…

The only link any of them would have to Megara now.

When they landed Lady jumped from his grip and landed on the gravely beach with grace. Rachel looked at him with her eyebrows raised, obviously asking who the girl was, but he hadn’t even landed yet and Lady managed to trip over a rock. Jake lunged forward and caught her before she hit her face, earning a muttered thank you. Gage couldn’t keep himself from laughing and he caught himself as they all stared, Rachel obviously noticing that he had just laughed a true laugh.

Choosing to file it as a win and not look a gift horse in the mouth Rachel stepped closer to the mysteriously masked girl. “Hi,” she smiled softly and held out her hand, “My name is Rachel.”

The girl took her hand cautiously and something shot through Rachel’s arm like electricity.

“Lady,” Lady’s voice was polite as she looked the girl before her up and down. Her long red hair was braided to one side, obviously tied last minute as curls were loose and stuck up around her at odd angels. She was a bit taller than Lady, but that was nothing new, and her build was lean and lethal. A thin white cloak fell down her back and over her shoulders, the hood bundled around her neck; underneath was a black sweater that was splattered in neon paint and a worn pair of white jeans tucked into black boots. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Like wise,” her demeanor had changed when she shook Lady’s hand but there wasn’t any time to dwell on that. “I believe Nico will be asking for you. And it will be nice for you to fill us in on what is going on around a warm fire.”

Rachel, Lady found out, was a pro at making camp. There were two large tents set up as well as a third, smaller tent that seemed to be storing all of their food and extra weapons. The white canvas of the tents was bright in the afternoon sun and the fire at the center was at a low burn. Prema emerged from one of the tents and smiled, beside her Percy seemed to jump for joy and run towards the opening.

Lady on the other hand was greeted by another eerie face, this one about the same age as the others but harder. Her eyes were set into her face like large shining black gems, and her hair was a glossy rope down the center of her back. There was a pale olive quality to her skin much like Nico’s and her height loomed over Lady without scaring her yet earning her respect. With a nearly regal elegance the woman approached her and extended a gloved hand. “My name is Prema Gen Cardoza,” she forced a smile and shook Lady’s hand. “I assume you’re the reason that Nico hasn’t returned from his last operation.”

Guilt fluttered in Lady’s chest but she pushed it aside. “I didn’t ask him to escort me around,” she crossed her arms across her chest and leveled her gaze with Prema’s.

“You were dead right about the attitude,” Prema shouted over her shoulder and something that resembled a laugh responded. “Listen, it’s not that I can really be upset that you occupied the past two weeks of one of the best scouters I’ve met, I am but I am far more grateful for all the people you managed to free that night.”

Lady nearly wanted to roll her eyes, “I hate to let you down but I didn’t do it to get any kind of reward. In fact I’m willing to bet that I freed a few people who are not going to be doing much good now that they are out.” Subconsciously Lady rubbed at her wrists and trailed her thumb down the small scars that line her right palm as well. “There were somewhat good reasons for locking a few of us up…”

They could all tell that there was a part of Lady that thought she had been better off in that cell. Jake more than anyone knew that Lady was terrified of herself and he had only wished to show her the monster that he truly was. A monster that she could in no way compete with. But he had been too afraid of losing her to even try and show her what he was. Now they were all standing on the edge of the fire, words lost, and he had to leave.

Because Lady was the only person that made him stop thinking about Megara. And he never wanted to stop thinking about her. The pain that gnawed at his chest was far better than the hollowness he felt when he stopped trying to remember her.

 

 

Percy threw his arms around Nico the moment he got into the tent. He didn’t even realize it until he was holding Nico by the shoulders and trying to force himself to memorize each line of his face that he was looking so intently at his friend. “You promised.”

Nico was too shocked to come up with anything witty, Percy’s hands were warm on his skin but he knew that if he reacted to it the warmth would pull away and leave him colder than before. “Promised?”

“That you wouldn’t leave!” Percy didn’t care now, he ignored the scared look in Nico’s eyes and pulled him into a gentle and tentative hug. Nico had packed on muscle over the years, he was still thin but there was something strong about him that Percy had never related to his body. The way that his arms lifted up Percy’s back and lightly touched his shoulder blades made him shiver and he only hoped that Nico hadn’t caught it. “You swore you wouldn’t leave this time.”

The sudden change in Percy made Nico nervous, scared that this was something being drawn towards him only to be torn away all too soon. He felt his hands lift up to Percy’s shoulders, gripping the fabric in his fingers and digging in his nails lightly. Why was it he wanted Percy so desperately?

“I swore to not leave,” he chuckled and pushed Percy away from him, knowing that the distance was a pain he needed to tolerate. “However I have little control on if I die.”

When provoked Percy could lay a decent punch. Nico hadn’t been expecting it so it shocked him but nowhere near as much as Percy’s broken expression did.

“Don’t you joke about shit like that!” Percy shoved him so he fell back against the pillow Prema had set up on his cot. “Are you forgetting that I searched across half the world for you because some asshole giants decided to stuff your dumb ass into a jar for weeks on end? I was terrified constantly, dreaming about you and feeling you slowly slip away from me, it was torture.”

If Nico had been shocked before he didn’t even know what to call this feeling. “My dumb ass?” he glared at Percy but the son of Poseidon just rolled his eyes.

“Out of all of that it shouldn’t surprise me that you choose to focus on me calling you a dumb ass. And yes, you decided to just take a stroll through Tartarus so you were being rather stupid.”

Nico wasn’t sure if it was from being stunned or angry but he started to laugh. “Oh yes,” he tried to catch his breath but it was useless, “I’m stupid. Says the guy who _jumped_ into Tartarus. Couldn’t let Miss Book Worm Love go alone, because who on earth could survive that? No instead just make me watch you fall!”

Frustrated Percy gripped his hair and resisted the urge to scream. He had two years to try and figure out how he felt about Nico, hell more than that. He and Annabeth had been broken up for nearly four years and yet he still didn’t know how to cope with realizing that he had feelings for the Italian. The sudden realization that it was more than just a lingering feeling had hit him like a truck, and the level of attraction had made him feel as though all the water in his body had been taken from him. Nico had grown up and he didn’t just make Percy want him he was driving Percy mad with desire. “I didn’t even know how you felt for me back then?!”

“Well good thing we killed that secret!” Nico stood up to yell at Percy, his head clear but his feet not quite as cooperative. He started to fall forward and Percy instinctively grabbed him, steadying his body and coming face to face with Nico. The long black lashes that ringed his endless eyes made Percy gulp. “Go back to your grey eyed beauty Percy,” blush spread over Nico’s cheeks and Percy was almost sad that they were practically the same height. But it put him so close… “This isn’t fair to me…”

Then their lips were pressed against each other and Percy was trying to figure out why he hadn’t done this earlier. He wrapped an arm around Nico and pulled him in closer, letting himself get lost in the kiss as Nico brought his hands up against Percy’s chest only to fist his hands in the think fabric of his shirt. Percy’s free hand found its way to Nico’s neck, as though there were any way for them to get closer, and he was suddenly still. Both of them frozen in their own sliver of time until Nico came to his senses and pulled away for air.

They stared at each other for the longest time before Lady broke their silence.

“I’m glad to see you two shattered that wall of tension,” Nico could practically hear her smirk behind her mask, “but I believe that Prema and the others would like to talk with all of us.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed. Please leave feedback, I read that I promise. Still working on a set schedule for updates but I promise it won't be every six moths. Also I will be updating the other stories as well so have no fear of that.  
> -ThroughTheFog aka Megara


	7. Changed Souls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lady can't keep a secret forever, but then again neither can Percy.   
> After finding four new demigods in the woods things are about to get interesting. Gage in protective, Prema is suspicious, and Rachel just wants everyone to calm down while they try and figure out just who Lady is.   
> Percy is confronted with everything he feels for Nico.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brand new laptop? Upside is it works! Downside is moving file :(   
> Hope you guys enjoy the Percico in this chapter! I promise more to come. Also I will try to get more consistent with updating, I've been in the process of editing my own novel so it takes a big chunk of my life. If anyone would be interested I am actually looking for Beta readers to go over my manuscript. Private message me for details :)   
> Enjoy!  
> -ThroughTheFog aka Megara

Chapter 7: Changed Souls

Prema detested government workers. In fact the very idea that they had sent Jake into that hellish place and he ended up working for them made her stomach twist into knots. She understood why he had done it, none of them had expected that the government had taken Megara and produced a child from her; it was quite ingenious actually. The next best thing to cloning her and since there was no way to clone godly DNA this was the only way anyone was regenerating any of her abilities since she didn’t seem to be coming back. But aside from going in there to rescue someone there was no reason to ever deal with the government and this girl that Jake had found in there was there more by choice than anything else.

On top of that the girl, Lady, was hiding her face. The ridiculous masks they forced their subjects to wear were usually the first thing that Prema wanted gone when they rescued anyone from the test sites. It was a lot easier to tell if someone was lying to you if you could see their eyes. But Lady still had that thing glued to her face, a smooth heart shaped black shield that kept Prema from looking at her directly. Megara would have hated those. She hadn’t be alive long enough to see them, it wasn’t until after the start of the war that the government started using them. It wasn’t even to protect them. Their only purpose was to keep the subjects at a distance from each other to prevent pacts from being formed because regardless of how much control they liked to say they had demigods were still an unknown force they were dealing with.

When Lady, Nico, and Percy came back out from the tent the hairs on Prema’s arms stood on end. Nico walked closely to Lady in a way that was obviously comfortable. That was odd for Nico. And while Percy looked a bit flustered he was practically hovering around Nico so protectively that Prema knew he got the same vibe from this Lady that she did. There was something off about the girl and everything that was even a bit off put Prema on edge now. She was not going to lose another friend because she hadn’t been paying enough attention again.

“Nico,” Prema barked at him when he got close and a smile spread over his face. Ever since the two of them had started working together they had grown more and more fond of each other. Aside from their heritage they didn’t have much in common, but in this time that was all that they really needed. Nico was about twenty two and after losing Nick and becoming part of another war that was about the age that Prema’s body had settled into. The two of them had been on a few missions together and Prema had managed to learn a few things here and there about Nico, one of them being that him tell Percy that he wasn’t his type was bull shit. So when they both stood awkwardly beside the other she wanted to shake him.

At the sound of his name Nico crossed his arms. “What is it Prema?”

“Oh don’t you dare start the shit with me,” she growled and Percy eyed her wearily. She may have been one of the demigods that had been a part of the militia but Percy was still more afraid of Nico than some of them. This woman just stared Nico down though. “Do you realize how long you were a wall? People are worried sick.”

Waving a hand at her Nico dismissed everyone’s concern the way he normally did, like it wasn’t actually there. “With what I found you are going to thank me,” he smirked and pointed to Lady, “this is the reason that our mission was such a failure slash success.” When Prema just stared at him he rolled his eyes, “she is the one that blew up the buildings.”

“How did she do that?” Gage spoke up this time and looked over Lady critically.

Gulping Lady fiddled with her hands. She wanted to run. Everyone staring at her had her hyperventilating but she couldn’t think of anywhere to go.

When she didn’t speak Nico grew nervous. “Actually,” he tapped a finger to his chin, “she never told me… She has been through a lot so I wasn’t going to pry.”

“Well while I don’t mean to pry,” Percy crossed his arms this time and tilted his head as he observed Lady, “I would actually like to know. Talking about it may help you get your memories back even.”

Nico looked around him and gritted his teeth. It was as though they were all suspicious of her, yet as much as he wanted to stand up for her it was hard to not start feeling like he was starting to wonder as well. He could understand not wanting to tell them things while she was trying to remember them on her own, but it was another thing to keep more recent things from them that she did remember.

“What is the point of continuing to run if you know that at least one of us will always be chasing you?” Jake looked at Lady, at the reflective black on her mask, and wondered what it would take for her to let anyone in.

Everything was still as Lady tried to calm her breathing. They were all staring at her, Nico looked as though he had been slapped in the face which she assumed was somewhat similar to how she probably looked. Stumps of wood had been set up around the fire and Lady was grateful for them in that moment as she climbed up on one and rested the heels of her feet on the edge.

“The last time I let anyone know,” she whispered, “they turned their backs on me. I don’t really blame them but I was willing to sacrifice myself for them…” when no one tried to speak she exhaled a shaky breath and continued. “This isn’t the first time that I’ve gotten away from the government… The last time was about eight months ago, when I woke up with no memories. I was in one of their testing rooms with tubes sticking out of me.”

Nico barely felt Percy’s hand on his back but the touch made him feel more at ease and he subconsciously stepped closer. Their body heat mingled and it felt like a security blanket that he had been missing while they all listened to Lady.

“I know that they did something to me,” she growled low in her throat and shook her head, “probably tried enhancing my powers. The room was…” she couldn’t even bring herself to describe it as bile started to burn the back of her throat. “All I was able to find were the tags with my subject number on them and I ran. I was lucky and a boy found me in the woods with a wolf before I froze to death.

“He took me to a friend of his and… It was only two months there but it felt like a lifetime and I was so happy.” They all watched her with sad eyes and Lady wondered how pathetic she sounded. “I was really sick when they found me but they patched me up and made me feel like, I don’t know, like there was something worth living for? Regardless it was like having a family. My memories were starting to return, not very clearly but there was hope. And being there felt like something that I wanted, May was…” Lady sighed and a smile forced its way past all her pain even though she tried to suppress it. “May thought I was meant for something. She saw my scars and she never flinched, it was odd feeling wholly accepted and I loved her so much…”

Everyone knew that happiness in their lives never lasted long.

“Her brother came to visit her once though. He moved in a couple weeks after I did and then her grandmother mysteriously died… He blamed me but I hadn’t done anything and then the two of them fought and I… I wanted to protect her but I didn’t know how strong I was. He had a cut in his arm and he threw her into a closet when he reported me.

“The property was swarmed with agents and people who wanted to fight me and I didn’t know what to do. They threatened to kill everyone there. I didn’t want to leave them but it was better that way. But after they had me in the binds an agent pulled May, her brother, and Neil from the house and held them all by their necks. Her brother died first, they shot him in the back of the head and May started to shout that she hoped they killed me. She went crazy and Neil just stared at the dirt. When they put the gun to her head I lost it…”

More knowing looks gazed over her.

“I killed them when she died.” Now Lady’s voice was flat and Nico stared at her slack jawed. “The second that bullet left for her I broke the binds and killed the guard that shot her. Then the guard that shot Neil. I managed to fight off all of the agents there, mortal and demigod, but I got careless. I had one held behind me and forgot about his gun, he shot me in the back of the head before he choked to death and another team of agents showed up. They bandaged me up and I was back in the camp where I got teamed up with Tramp. My memories that had been returning stopped, when they told me that they had my memories for me I swore I would do anything for them. They told me the only reason I killed those agents so easily was because that’s all I’ve ever been; a killer. They made me swear to never use that power again or they wouldn’t bring me back.”

It was quiet for a long time, Jake unable to look at the partner he had worked with for the past six months. “What all did you have left to do?” he asked her and they both knew what he meant.

“One.”

“Who?”

“You.”

More silence.

“Why didn’t you,” he finally whispered.

“Because you had something to live for, I didn’t,” Lady undid her braid and ran her hand through it. “Why get your memories back if they are going to be filled with pain? That was all I felt trying to remember. I got this feeling like I was so close to something that I could never have, some empty pit in my stomach that just got deeper each day. Like seeing your favorite fruit but knowing if you eat it you will die. It was agony. So I decided that I was just going to leave, and I was going to free everyone I could doing so. There are times when I’m not even sure I freed them out of kindness or strategy. Using them was a great way to keep the attention off of me and to be honest I’ve never really felt anything deeper than knowing I should regret all the things I’ve done… What kind of person feels that way? Like I was trained to know how to emulate human emotion but I only contain a sliver of it.”

Rachel felt the ever shifting emotions, a whirlwind of nausea that threatened to drop her flat and she wasn’t sure why she liked it.

After helping Rachel sit down Gage looked back at Lady.

“What… What kind of power do you have?” Gage knew that there was fear in his voice but he had always managed to mask it. However if this was what he thought it was he knew that he had to find out and help her learn how to avoid using it… There was only one type of power that even Gage stayed away from, and recently a number of demigods had been trying to relearn and reteach the technique. Some had managed to pull it off, demonstrating terrifying power, but more often than not this type of power only led to destruction.

Shyly Lady lifted her hand up and focused. There were faint scars on her palms that she wasn’t sure where they came from but in the center of her hand a small glow started to form. She knew she had to be careful, if she didn’t put all her focus into managing the flow of energy to her hand she would lose control of it. When too much energy escaped her it was like a bomb, like the night she blew the roof off the compound.

Gage immediately held up his hand to get her to stop. The energy, her very aura, was suck back into her body in a second and she wrapped her arms around herself. “If I have that kind of ability,” she shuddered, “I have no idea what I may have done to people…”

“Well you don’t have to worry about us judging you for that,” Gage shook his head and cursed himself for bringing this kind of power into the world. “There are a lot of demigods out there experimenting with this power, I’m just glad you see the danger in it.”

Her body slowly stopped shaking and Lady looked at those around her. Nico looked absolutely horrified as he watched her, still in shock that she had actually killed people the way she described, and the idea that she possibly scared him made her stomach churn. “I need a moment,” she stood up to leave and Jake grabbed her hand. Nico stepped closer to her and she froze, not sure if she wanted to be comforted or not. After the respect they had given her to speak and how kindly they treated her once they knew what she could do she looked to Jake and the unease in her stomach calmed just slightly. “I promise I won’t leave.”

 

 

When Lady left Nico wasn’t sure what he should feel. He wanted to go after her, make sure she didn’t leave, but something told him that if he faced her now there would be more fear than kindness to him. That wasn’t fair to her, it wasn’t her fault that she had been forced into those situations, yet a part of him didn’t think he could handle being near her. It explained the unease he had felt when he met her, her power scaring him just from the feel of it. When a person took another life their aura was forever changed. Lady’s aura was odd and that could be the only explanation as to why.

“I’m going to do a perimeter,” Prema looked at the others. She still wasn’t convinced that this Lady was someone she wanted to be just off on her own. If she even attempted to shadow travel Prema had ever nook and cranny of the area on high alert so she would know.

Rachel stood and looked after Lady with one eyebrow raised. Now that the emotions were more stable she was feeling a bit better, still the fact that Lady had managed to get that kind of a reaction from her was disturbing. “I think we better go let Reyna know what’s been going on. Let her know that Jake is ready to take some of the kids from New Rome.”

“Taking kids from New Rome?” Percy looked at Rachel like she was crazy. He had met her once before, when they came by after Megara had been disposed of by the government. She had been a wreck then, and the entire camp suffered for it. Rachel was a quarter breed of Aphrodite that had the ability to manipulate emotions. So her being depressed and, around Gage who easily aggravated it had been an interesting week until she got herself under control. Groups of demigods would just stop and cry when she got near them, and if she was in a bad mood it was as though everyone was going through a pubescent fit in twenty minutes. “you’ve got to be crazy, New Rome is one of the only places left! Camp HalfBlood is just as overflowed with campers and refugees at this point.”

Gage nodded, “trust us, we know. But it also isn’t the only place for them anymore.”

“She didn’t,” Nico looked up and the disbelief on his face made Percy excited. Gage nodded and Nico literally jumped, “That bitch came through! I thought she was just staying in her hideout.”

“Who?”

“Illa Jason,” Jake’s voice was exasperated, “the returning heir to the Jason family line. Although that doesn’t mean much now. I personally don’t have anything nice to say about her personality but she is powerful, and she is a child of Hecate.”

“So she can produce magical borders around given areas if she has enough support.” Nico was still smiling, “am I helping you take back the island?”

While Nico had been out in the world and learning about all the people fighting this war, Percy had taken the opportunity to stay back and meet the other people while they were in recovery. Part of that was because Reyna and Chiron didn’t want Percy mixed with the newer demigods, something about them needing someone they trusted to guard their people. This didn’t mean that he never met anyone new, in fact a lot of them were in and out with different injuries and just taking a chance to recover. Illa, however, was not a name he could place to a face.

“We don’t have the group support to take back the island right now,” the corners of Gage’s mouth turned down at that, “but we have something else we are going to try to do.”

Both boys looked at Gage questioningly and he just smirked. “I convinced my stuck up cousin to help us set up borders around Alcatraz,” a chuckled filled the air around them and they turned to see Jake with a dark look on his face.

“Where better to put the riff raff than in an abandoned prison?” he stood and stretched in a cat like manner that Nico had never seen anyone aside from Percy pull off. It was funny how similar most children of the big three looked, although Jake didn’t have Percy’s glowing skin and was actually a bit taller than the other. He looked about twenty two or maybe twenty three, and Nico wondered what he must have seen in his short life. If his life was even that short. Nico was able to tell that most of the specialists were not as young as they appeared but Jake still felt younger to him.

Percy watched silently as Nico observed Jake. He couldn’t help the feeling of jealousy that tried to boil out of his mouth but he managed to clench his teeth and turn away. Lady had stormed off, almost literally it felt, into the woods. He wanted to still feel the way he had about her before but he couldn’t. He had just found out that she had killed people and he couldn’t hold it against her because he knew that in her shoes he would have done the same thing. Memories of Tartarus rose in his mind and he knew without a doubt that now if it was between bad people and Nico he would choose Nico every time.

 

When he found her he was surprised that she had managed to climb up one of the taller of the trees in the area and was staring out towards the ocean like she missed it. “Hey!” he called and had run because the noise seemed to scare her and she stumbled from the branch she had been perched on. A shocked yelp escaped her mouth and Percy would have laughed if she wasn’t falling to her doom. Was this a girl who had actually murdered people? She sounded like a child.

He wasn’t going to catch her quick enough…

Just before she could hit the ground something stopped her like a cushion and she bounced so she landed much more gently on her side rather than a hard splat with her face.

They stared at each other a moment before Percy forced himself to break the tension. “Do I even want to know?”

Lady made sure her mask was secure and leveled her gaze with his. “Got anything valuable to offer for it?”

“For what?”

“For knowing,” she rolled her eyes and stood up. “For a lot of us our gifts are guarded secrets now, ever since Ares was able to perfect replicating them.”

Percy crossed his arms realizing that she had a good point. “I don’t think he had perfected that though.”

“Oh,” she raised one eyebrow but Percy didn’t elaborate. “Why don’t you think so?”

He smiled a bit, “Because they haven’t cloned Megara yet,” the statement was blunt and anyone could tell from his posture that he was proud of himself.

“Maybe they can’t clone the dead,” Lady didn’t really have a filter, and she could tell that what she said had been a bit harsh, “I’m just trying to be realistic. It’s either that or she has markings that not everyone knows about or she might have demon blood in her…”

The demon blood. Did the specialists have it? Percy wasn’t sure.

It was quiet for a bit and Percy leaned back against the tree nearest her.

“I would have done the same thing you know,” his voice wasn’t more than a whisper but Lady caught it. “If it were someone I loved I wouldn’t have held back on the bastards that killed them.”

Lady thought for a moment, “Even if they stabbed you in the back?” he nodded. “I don’t think Nico would be able to do that to you.” She admitted it without even glancing at him

“I don’t know about that,” Percy said, “not that he wouldn’t stab me in the back. I know he wouldn’t do that.”

“Then what?”

“Nico has been through a lot,” he sighed, “I know that I don’t have a right to be upset but I’m sure I blew my chances with him years ago. He actually told me that I wasn’t his type.”

She snorted and then actually laughed, “Well it certainly didn’t look that way earlier!”

Embarrassed Percy felt himself blushing, “Well what about you? You and that girl at the bar seemed close.” He knew that the words hit her harder than he had meant but in the moment it was hard to remember that they were both broken pieces that may never get fixed with time. War had a way of doing that to you Percy had learned.

“I haven’t had something like what I saw in a long time…” she seemed to smile even at the memory, “And even then what I had wasn’t real. I don’t know if I’ve ever had something real. Most of the time other people are just distractions for me, a thrill that I’m not sure how to explain but it’s like confronting a fear and that rush. Well it’s something like that for me, like physical attraction is something I should fear and I revel in it.” Sighing she turned to him finally, “what I was with the two of you was warmer than that. There was actual love there, love that I wish I could trust myself to feel again.”

Percy wasn’t sure how to respond to that but he got the feeling she was right. Lady was so right that the only explanation for everything was that he was fully attracted to Nico. That he could love Nico. And who cared if what they had did in fact turn into love? Their lives were too short to not take the risk.

“Go ahead,” Lady urged him on, “If I could have another second with May I know that I would.”

Without thinking about it Percy grabbed her and pulled her into a tight hug, kissing the front of her mask so hard it fell off. He caught sight of her face, a face that held the same type of beauty he had only seen on goddesses like Calypso before. It shocked him and they stared at one another for a moment. The fear that consumed her eyes made Percy guilty and he grabbed her mask from the ground before handing it to her.

Her hair had fallen in front of her face, hiding one of her eyes and a good portion of half her face. He brushed the strands back and smiled when she was too stunned to flinch. “You know,” he told her honestly, “you truly are beautiful. Even if you’re not what everyone would expect… Regardless of what you’ve done we all know now and we still haven’t run from you. You should show them how gorgeous you are.”

And before she could respond he bolted off to find Nico. All Lady could do was stare at the inside of her mask and wonder if she really had a chance to live without it.

 

 

Nico laid back down on the cot they had put up for him. He had to admit that Rachel was actually really cool, he loved their own bouncy red head Dare but this Rachel was somehow her polar opposite. She wasn’t an oracle, and she was a crappy artist, but she had the ability to calm everyone down. It made missions a lot easier if you had her, and to top it off she was a hunter for Artemis so she was the best to camp out with. Since the war Artemis had gone a wall for a while like the rest of them, in fact she had gone a wall just before the real fighting had started. Thalia had been worried, and when she found out there was an entire other group of girls out there she had made it her mission to track them down.

That was how they found Megara’s body.

Now Nico couldn’t be more grateful for that. He buried his face into a pillow that smelled like lavender and wondered what it would take to convince Artemis her camping ways.

He tried to not think about kissing Percy.

Why did he do that?! Nico couldn’t believe it had happened. And Percy had kissed him! Of all things… of course they hadn’t been able to think much past that since Lady had been sent to grab them for a meeting but Nico preferred it that way. He didn’t have to see the disgusted look on Percy’s face at least…

“Nico!” Percy yanked the flap to the tent back as he ran into the small area and stared at Nico. He couldn’t deny it, the fact that seeing Nico just laying on a cot made him nervous was confirmation he should have acknowledged a long time ago. “Nico we need to talk.”

Groaning Nico didn’t want to make eye contact with the boy that had an annoying way of constantly catching him off guard.

“Nico I don’t care what you say,” Percy moved so he was at Nico’s bedside and then knelt down, “I really like you.”

The entire world went silent.

“I want you to know that I broke up with Annabeth. Years ago. I couldn’t handle what happened between us and I started to wonder… Well it ended with me leaving her and spending a good few years on a boat in the middle of the ocean to figure myself out. Then you came hurtling over the dock and I knew. I didn’t want to admit it but I knew.”

Nico couldn’t make himself function, he was on auto pilot as he turned to see Percy all bright eyes and running on adrenaline high at his side. “What are you talking about Percy?”

“I like you!”    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! It took a while but I had a lot of fun with it. I would love to hear your thoughts on it, leave comments below and feel free to private message me for anything. If it's regarding my beta reader inquiry even better but I'm always up for conversation :)   
> -ThroughTheFog aka Megara


	8. Lost Connections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy gets to know Jake, a father and shamed demigod, and what he sees only assures him that he can't keep Nico at a distance any longer. And what is there to make of the child that was born to Jake and the late Megara?   
> When Nico wakes up he knows that something has changed between him and Percy, but just how far is he willing to let that go when he is also worried about his reaction to Lady?  
> Lady has even more she hasn't told everyone, but with the worst moment in her current memory out there for the others she knows that this night is going to determine if she has made friends or enemies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short chapter but there shall be more, I promise!  
> -Megara aka TheLastHeroesDaughter

Chapter 8: Lost Connections

Time seemed to move slowly when Percy made it back to the fire pit. Prema had left, still keeping tabs on the perimeter she had set up, or so Percy presumed, and Jake stood still as stone while staring at the flames as they died. Nico practically fainted at Percy’s outburst but he wouldn’t take it back even if he could. He knew that if he didn’t tell Nico every chance he got then there was a good chance he wouldn’t say it enough in his lifetime.

“You should have given him a chance to rest,” Rachel’s voice was as calm as always, a purr through the wind like everyone around her was a caged animal. Percy suspected that maybe it was just being that aware of everyone’s emotional state but it might also have something to do with the fact that Jake was staring into the flickering flames like he wanted to hurtle himself into them. “Nico has very fractured emotions.”

A moment passed and Jake stood abruptly as the flames shot towards the sky. Percy jumped back but a moment later there was an image shifting through the bright blues and oranges. “Daemon,” he breathed a sigh of relief and Percy saw a tall man bow his head, “how is she?” The sound of a baby’s cry echoed from the crackling wood and Jake leaned closer to see a baby in the man’s arms. “She is so small…” Jake sighed.

“I would say touch her but you might burn yourself,” the man, Daemon, chuckled darkly and another figure bounced to his side. “Oh, Bri wanted to say hi.”

“No,” Bri chirped and the image of her flickered. “I want to see the baby.” She snatched the baby from Daemon’s arms and cuddled the girl close to her chest. The little girl looked like a newborn, the lump of cloth so small that it nearly disappeared in Bri’s arms. “You should be here Jake,” her tone was stern but Percy could see her smiling faintly, “she already has her eyes.”

Jake’s eyes glossed over and Percy caught the contrast of his green eyes to his caramel skin. He could tell that Jake was still recovering from being held by the government, his skin still missing color, but more life had seemed to return to him than it had to Lady. Life was easier if you had something to live for… The brightness of Jake’s eyes proved that as he looked at his daughter, miles away yet inches from his face where he couldn’t touch her.

Percy’s eyes swept over to the tent where Nico was resting. He wondered if confessing his feelings would ever do more than just ease the strain on his heart. Rachel was right that Nico had been through a lot but all that proved to Percy was that Nico could handle anything that life threw his way.

“Let me see her!” Rachel’s voice bounced now and she bumped against Jake so they were both staring into the flames as Bri lifted the child. A clearer image of a chubby face and wide eyes came up. The girl was definitely a new born, her face still too fresh to be cute yet she looked more like an alien. “Oh my gosh! You adorable little angle!” she cooed and motioned to the flame like she was tickling the baby. “I’m your auntie Rachel,” she whispered and Jake rolled his eyes.

“Don’t let her fool you sweetheart,” he nudged her to the side, “she’s your great aunt Rachel.” The two of them nudged each other back a forth for a moment before Rachel did something that always amazed Percy: she closed her eyes and hummed a light burst from her back only to fall away in dazzling glitter and reveal a pair of beautiful jet black wings with white feathers floating in the air around her.

The baby’s eyes grew with wonder and Rachel laughed. “I’m great alright,” she sighed and let her fingers dance just out of the reach of the fire. “I really wish your dad had brought you by little one.”

“I’ll see you soon,” Jake whispered so low that Percy almost didn’t hear him, “but I promise I won’t be gone long. You have Daemon to watch over you though…”

Daemon came back into focus, his eyes sympathetic when he saw Jake, “I’ll keep her safe, you do what you need to for her mother. You’ll be a good father Jake.” Jake nodded when Daemon spoke but he didn’t say a word. “If I don’t hear from you tomorrow I’ll send the shadows to you.”

“You better be careful with that,” Prema stepped out from the darkness of the trees and crossed her arms to look at Daemon’s form in the fire. “I can’t be held responsible for anything I do to your goons.”

The fire sputtered as Daemon laughed, “I promise they will stay far from your shadows,” he tipped his head to her and looked up to smile at Jake. “Jake I know that you want to be here but I hope you know that she is welcome in my kingdom as long as you need somewhere safe for her to stay.”

Silence filled that air and Percy wondered what sort of message was communicated just between the group around the fire. “Before you go,” Prema stepped forward and dropped something in the fire, “it was one of the few things we managed to find after the alter was destroyed. Take care of her Daemon.”

“Aww you said my name,” Daemon’s smile was mischievous, “I knew you’d grow to like me one day Cardoza.” And then the flames turned blindingly white and shot to the sky before dying back down to the small crackling campfire that had been there before.

Nico crept up behind Percy, eerily quiet as normal, “What the fuck was that,” his voice making Percy jump.

Everyone who had been staring into the fire turned and looked at them, Prema lighting up when she saw Nico. “You’re up!” she half cheered and slinked over to him. “It’s about time for dinner.”

An involuntary growl sounded from both Percy’s and Nico’s stomachs. “I’ll take you up on that,” Percy laughed as Gage came through the trees with a basket of berries and more firewood. Rachel waved to him hesitantly as she went to help him with the firewood.

“You missed the baby,” Rachel whispered as the two of them started piling everything around the circle. Gage seemed disappointed but one look in Jake’s direction and Percy knew Gage was more worried for the guy than he was about seeing his niece. “I’ll go get the roast,” she looked over at Gage, “you’re on cobb duty. And Jake,” she called across the flames, “there is some bread in the storage tent if you don’t mind.”

Obviously grateful for the distraction Jake left the fire.

“How are you feeling,” Percy asked Nico as they sat on a stump by the fire. It was starting to get dark and the chill in the air was worse than it had been earlier. Nico leaned against him, stiff and awkward but still leaning into Percy.

The brightness had returned to Nico’s eyes, the shine over the dark irises. “I’m fine, a bit delirious, but fine.”

Percy could tell that Nico was trying to remember if what Percy had said was real or not. Without hesitation Percy wrapped Nico under one of his arms and whispered into his ear, “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

 

 

 

Lady knew she was going to have to return to the fire eventually. The fear of being looked at like a monster had worn off, or she had gotten used to it… after months on display it was hard to be effected by what other people thought of you. If Megara let every hateful stare hurt her she would have gone more insane long ago. Jake was a different story though. They had spent so much time together and neither of them had been able to finish their hit list. She knew that she had been on his, even if he had never told her. And she would have let Jake kill her if that was what it came down to…

Only she wasn’t sure if anyone could kill her.

She looked at her hand as her own energy swirled within it. A power that was sure to turn people against her. There was more to it than she had shown though. Letting her own aura sink back under her skin she held her fingers over a nearby plant, focusing on the energy she could feel. The flower started to wilt, the bright red petals that had popped through a small mound of snow slowly curled in and turned black as bright green energy danced around Lady’s fingertips.

Letting the aura go, pushing just a bit of her own along with it, Lady stood as small sprouts of flowers climbed through the snow at her feet. Plants, people… Lady could do a lot. She remembered the girl from San Francisco, Lady had turned that girl’s energy into a weapon against her without hesitation. There were some powers that were better left untouched… She forced the thoughts away and headed back for camp.

Nico was leaning against a tree on the edge just before the clearing and Lady smiled at him, her face again concealed behind her mask. She didn’t say anything as she got closer but Nico turned toward her, blocking her path.

“I’m sorry,” he bent his head and avoided her eyes but his words sounded sincere, “they shouldn’t have pushed you to reveal something like that. We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of.”

“No one pressured me into anything,” Lady tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, the sun from the past few days was bringing back hints of red to the rest of the dead color. “I wouldn’t have shared that if I didn’t think you deserved to know. It’s part of the reason that I’ve had issues with the idea of traveling with others. The government has every right to take me back, I’m not a demigod held by them just because they can. They had to take me in the second time because I killed people.”

Nico’s eyes widened, “You were just protecting yourself,” he tried to tell her but Lady cut him off.

“I lost control Nico, I’m unstable and therefore a threat. I couldn’t blame any of you for turning me in, it just might ensure that Jake’s daughter is kept safe.”

Someone from the camp shouted for them, “Lady,” Nico reached out and held her by the shoulders, “the government killed his daughter’s mother, and she is the only child of a demigod who was supposed to be the key to this world. There is no sacrifice you could make that would guarantee that child was safe.”

 

 

 

Dinner was eaten in silence. Lady’s mask had been modified to eat and the lower section sat in her lap while she munched on fresh berries and drank from a bottle Jake had handed her. The two of them didn’t talk or even sit close but Nico could see him catching glances at her every chance he thought no one was looking.

“Do you think Lady will ever be comfortable enough to take the mask off?” Nico nuzzled against Percy, still not used to the feel of Percy’s body against his. The scent of the sea rolled off his close and the close coastline brought fog that night. It was… nice, Nico decided.

Percy’s lips rested on Nico’s head, a light kiss that Nico almost didn’t notice, before Percy smiled at Lady. “She might… it’s a shame she hides such a pretty face.”

“You’ve seen her?” Percy nodded against him, “what did she look like?” Nico asked.

At first Percy didn’t say anything and Nico thought he wasn’t going to. Then, almost sadly, Percy whispered, “lost.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you guys thought. The next chapter is going to be setting up the quest to take Alcatraz with Illa Jason's help, but does she have ulterior motives. No one seems to have much nice to say about the woman but she is powerful. Percy and Nico know they are going to need more than their group to make this happen so reinforcements are brought in.


	9. Great Things Fall Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world has been at war for so long it is hard for anyone to imagine a light at the end of this collapsing tunnel. With the remaining friends of the late Megara, their new found comrades from New Rome and Camp HalfBlood, and aiding a fugitive from one of the government camps the group plans to gather forces and reclaim their home. With help from one of the underground Jason's they will take the island of Alcatraz before storming their own shores in the hopes that they will push government force back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lady is still struggling to decide whether her memories are worth getting back or just trying to move forward. Without her memories there is nowhere for her to go though, and both Nico and Percy have assured her that moving forward wont help if she doesn't understand what she is letting go. Will these strangers really be able to help her, even more importantly: can she keep them safe from herself?  
> Nico and Percy find themselves thrust into the center of yet another war, but for the first time it isn't a war that is hidden. Now they risk their lives around monsters and mortals alike, even being forced to fight their own kin. The change has made any life they had all sworn to live impossible, the dreams of being able to live a normal life destroyed after one simple government message: everyone was to be hunted. Joining forces with the new demigods none of them had known about seems risky but it is the only choice they have, there isn't time to be making more enemies. And in all this mess they both grow closer together and worry if they waited too long to enjoy their relationship before they die.

 

Chapter 9: Great Things Fall Together

 

 

 

Morning sun blinded Lady when she woke up. Her mask was still resting over her face, the air around her crisp when she peeled back the thick down blanket that Rachel had given her the night before. When Lady looked around the tent she wasn't surprised to see that Rachel had already packed up her bed, the bundle of cloth and mattress pushed to the corner of the tent and tied together. Prema was also already gone, though her bed wasn't even just packed up it was already gone and the only thing of hers left was a back pack that had her initials on it. The last thing left in the tent was another person bundled under the covers of a bed that hadn't been there when Lady fell asleep. She stood to get ready for the day, pulling a sweater over the outfit she had warn the day before, and she saw Jake's soft black curls peeking out from under his covers. "I know you're awake Tramp," she pulled on a pair of boots and started rolling her pack as Jake stuck his head out.

 

"I'm surprised you're up," he yawned, "usually you sleep until noon." 

 

She ignored him and kept wrapping her bed together. 

 

"You look like shit," Jake said and crawled out of his bed. His hair was a mess, the silky curls sticking up and a trail of dried drool on his chin. He was shirtless so his burn seal was visible and trailed down from his back to his side and around to his navel. Lady had seen it before, Jake wasn't exactly shy and he tended to sneak into women's tents though usually he was simply invited. 

 

She huffed and undid the braid in her hair only to redo it tighter and shoot him a smug look that he couldn't see. "Just what everyone wants to hear in the morning. Aren't you supposed to be in the men's tent, pervert." Lady started for the front of the tent but he stepped in front of her. Expecting to see him to try playing some sort of game with her Lady stepped to the side without looking up but Jake touched her arm and she froze. He didn't even have to grab her, he made her so on edge that just skin contact mad her nervous enough to stop in her tracks. "Jake, I don't have time for you to pull anything." The look in his eyes didn't soften though and he very slowly raised his hand so she could see it before he rested it on the top of her head, his fingers just grazing the edge of her mask. A shiver went down her spine but she didn't move away. It was just like she had told Nico, there were times when she got close to danger she didn't run... She was exhilarated by it. Even though she knew she should pull away, she didn't want to.

 

"You're still wearing it," he stated but never made a move to take it from her. Lady didn't think he really would, in fact if she did think that she would have stepped away. "I just don't know why..."

 

"You don't have to know why," she was still another second and then smacked his hand away. "You don't know me Tramp," she spat out his name and hoped it would upset him but he just smiled at her. "Isn't there a rule about you being in here anyways?" she asked but he just shrugged. 

 

Fresh air was breezing into their tent and Lady stepped closer to the door. "I can tell you now that everyone here would help you," his voice was soft behind her and Lady was thankful to get out of the confined space. "Whenever you're ready to open up!" he shouted after her.

 

Nico and Percy were both perched on a log in front of a dying fire, leaning against each other but just barely. Lady smiled at it and walked to the kitchen area where she was able to take her mask of just long enough to wash her face. Another benefit of the great outdoors was no mirrors, the only reflection she saw was on the surface of still water. She placed her mask back on and snapped the bottom half of it off so she could eat a cereal bar while she walked to the tree line, an escape she needed before Jake was done changing. 

 

Only for once the shade didn't offer the comfort she was looking for. 

 

Lady could feel someone watching her, turning her into a study just like she had been before the government made real use of her. It was unnerving, the shadows that once offered her comfort were now twisting around her, causing a barrier between her and the freedom she had just discovered. It wasn't hard to figure out who was behind it, Lady knew what Nico was capable of and this wasn't it.

The shadows started to feel physical, they brushed against her skin and it to Lady all she had to find darkness that she could still control. Once she did, once the restraints on her dissolved, she felt for Prema's presence and it didn't take long for the shadows to melt away so Lady was face to face with her, both of them crouched on a branch that swayed with each breeze.

"I don't like being spied on, what have I done to you?" Lady glared at Prema through her mask and watched the woman's eyes widen in mild surprise but they quickly narrowed again, analyzing.

Prema rolled her shoulders and looked through the trees at the camp that was being taken down, "As long as you look like an enemy that's how I will treat you."

Each word was short, clipped and stern but Lady caught Prema's glance back to her like she was afraid... or worried. Lady wished she could just have normal issues, take her mask off and not worry about the repercussions, but regardless she had her own issues. She remembered the motel, the mirror mocking her with her own reflection and the flip of her stomach. Whatever Lady had done, even without the memory she still had the remorse that made her sick. "None of the enemy I met wore masks," Lady stood so she could look up to Prema easier, "only the people other people in chains wore masks and now the enemy left me with one last level of defense against everything in this war. I'll remove this when I'm safe."

She moved to leap from the branch but Prema caught her, "Lady, there has to be give and take. I have to feel we're all safe with you here."

A sad smile met Lady's lips but she didn't move for a moment, "I don't know if you are..." and with that she stepped off the edge and fell towards the earth. Just before her feet hit the ground there was a cushion of air and Lady didn't even stumble as she made her way back to camp, trying to decide if she should stay or leave.

 

 

 

Nico watched Lady head for the trees. He knew that with Prema out there Lady wouldn't be able to sneak away but he worried for her. There was more going on with Lady than she had said, and she had nearly broken down talking about what little she had. It hurt to see her like that, Nico didn't like it. He looked back to Percy who had his eyes trained on her as well. They didn't hold the skepticism they had the day before, now they were protective and haunted. The usual sea green had grown dark and he was obviously tired.

"Do you worry about her now?" Nico's voice was soft but of course Percy had heard him. "Its hard not to... like her, even though she is frustrating."

"She makes me think of..." Percy tensed, his jaw clenched tight but he turned to look at Nico, "seeing her that broken reminds me of Annabeth and I after... well after Tartarus." Hearing Percy mention Annabeth's name hurt more than it should have but then the horrors of that trip washed over Percy's face. Nico remembered that place, remembered the monsters and what he had to do just to survive... it was Hell in the truest sense of the word.

Both of them sat in silence, watching the fire crackle and start to die before Jake stormed out of the girls tent. "I swear I never know what's going on in that girl's head," he grumbled and grabbed a breakfast bar. "Any idea when we all head out for Alcatraz?"

"In a hurry Jake?" Rachel chuckled, "I'd give it time to let us reassure everyone you didn't go a wall."

"A wall?" the conversation pulled Percy back to the present and Nico smiled to see the pain in his eyes fade.

Jake groaned and swallowed the food in his mouth. "I was sent into the government to find Megara, bring..." his voice broke but he didn't acknowledge it, "I was sent to bring her body back... and I lost contact with everyone except Prema. Had to make it look like I betrayed them so I could find my daughter." Jake threw his trash in the fire and the flames erupted with another image of Daemon with a bundle of blankets in his arms. "Demon!"

"Oh the baby!" Rachel cooed and rushed to the flames, "have you come up with a name yet?" she gripped Jake's arm but he shook his head, "how dare you! Megara would smack you!" they both chuckled and looked closer at the baby.

"She already sleeps so well," the other girl they had spoken to last night was in the flames now, "I swear she's just perfect."

It was sweet to see all of them so excited about the baby, something bright in all the bad that had been taking over. Nico leaned against Percy again, "I think," he whispered in Percy's ear, "we are capable of such terrible actions in the name of survival because we create miracles like this. The child of a deceased woman in the middle of a war, a child that gets to grow up with all that love."

Percy smiled a little, "I wish it were that easy to see in the moment," he  
nudged Nico and the two of them stood to make their way closer to the fire. Last night neither of them wanted to invade this moment but now Percy wanted to see, wanted to see if he could imagine what Megara looked like since no one seemed to have kept a photo of her. The baby was asleep, her long eyelashes and dark hair only barely visible through the flicker of the flames. "She's cute..."

"Babies all look like aliens," Lady didn't even come near the fire when she returned, she brushed past all of them and started to take down the tent. "When do we leave?"

"Lady!" Gage came running from the shoreline and waved to her, "let me help you with that." But she was efficient, Nico watched as her fingers quickly loosened knots and folded the tent before securing it tight and went to take down the frame. Her mask still seemed glued to her face but she waved Gage off.

With an almost real sounding laugh she gestured to the fire, "go see the little one!"

Gage looked at her puzzled but joined the group at Nico's side to see his niece. "Oh omorfo koritsi," he sighed and idly pulled Rachel to him he whispered something in her ear that made her smile.

"Alright!" Prema popped out of a nearby shadow clapping her hands, when she saw the group around the fire she actually jumped and ran to see. Nudging Jake out of her way she cooed at the baby, "We'll see you soon sweetheart," her gaze went to Daemon, "we're reporting to the Roman camp soon. I'll speak to Reyna and see who she is willing to spare and what support we can gather from the people there. Conditions aren't great right now but I'm sure if we open Alcatraz for sanctuary we will have people willing to help us. Illa will be waiting for us on the shore in a few days so as long as she can hide low then getting her there will be the worst of it. She said the border will take a week if she has strong enough aura wielders to assist."

"I can help with people, are we constructing the new base under the old law?" Daemon sounded like a general to Nico but Prema was obviously in control.

Prema nodded, "Non aggression policy so anyone you've got is welcome, I'll try contacting some support I know will keep the peace." She turned to Jake, "Are you going to come with us?"

He smiled, "Megara wouldn't want it any other way. Although I'm sure she would stay skeptical of Illa."

Behind them Lady had the tent packed and was sitting on the bound up framework. "What kind of place are you all talking about?"

"Home," Gage said and Rachel made her way closer to Lady, "you're welcome there with us, I'm sure we could use the help."

Rachel stood still at Lady's side and even though she seemed on edge there was more interest in her eyes. "it won't be like forcing your own aura out. The barriers are comprised of magical aura, it harmonizes with anyone capable of controlling energy. We could teach you."

"Well you won't be going alone," Percy looked at all of them, "I can help bring our people to assist in the borders. Leo loves taking Festus out."

"An alliance will help," Prema clapped Nico on the back and he chuckled, "we could use you as well di Angelo."

Nico groaned, he didn't like working in groups. One look from Percy though and Nico knew he couldn't let him go alone. Nico had met a lot of these 'new' demigods and while he had grown to like Prema and Rachel and Gage, he still didn't know enough about them. Their powers were bred into them, they were created for one use and that was to build an army. It wasn't any true fault of individuals but that was their culture... "Fine, but I work alone, in select groups, or not at all." Prema laughed but he knew she understood where he was coming from.

"What did you mean by one law? Non aggression?" Lady squeaked from her perch.

The girl from the fire perked up, "Non aggression is the only true law from the Island. Everyone agrees to not harm another person or their property, its an old law from before governments were viewed they way they are now. From when people ran from corruption and hid out in desolate areas. Makes it so all of the citizens live in true equality." Nico saw the girl in the flames smile, "my name is Bri by the way." her voice was sweet and Nico remembered her from the stories he had listened to. Bri was the girl who took the first bullet for Megara and tried to use her Phoenix regeneration on her.

Lady stood and stretched, "I've got to find my memories."

"I might be able to help with that," Daemon was rocking the baby now and Nico could see the longing in Jake's eyes. "I've got contacts around the globe so I'm sure I could find someone with something for you. If you help us that is."

Connections around the globe... Nicole wasn't sure who Daemon was but he had a feeling this wasn't someone to upset. Lady seemed to be thinking the same thing as she stepped closer to the fire, "And exactly what would I have to do in order to help?"

"Megara never enjoyed forcing people into anything. Her cause was to make everyone equal so if you don't want to help us you can leave at anytime, but I'll be bringing the baby to Alcatraz once it's safe. I'll bring  
whatever help I can find to you then."

The response threw Lady off, Nicole could see it, but after a couple quick farewells the fire sputtered and died out. Nico watched Jake kick the ashes before turning on his heel and facing the coastline through the trees. "Her mother is going to miss us taking a stand..." Nice might have been the only one to hear him say that but he couldn't have imagined if having a child he couldn't be with.

"So are you coming with us?" there was an anxiousness to Gage's voice but when Lady nodded he seemed excited to have her with him. Then he looked at Nico and Percy hopefully, but Percy already had his arm around Nico with a broad smile on his face. Of course they were doing this... Percy saw danger and loved to jump in.

It didn't take Nico long to pack, just the few things he always carried with him, but Percy was having trouble with his bed. Lady was the first at his side, patiently explaining that all you have to do is roll the mattress tight. "Anything I can help with?" Nico crouched beside Percy and wondered how long this dream would last before the longing in Percy's eyes melted away.

"Why don't you two go help tear down the kitchen," Lady finished getting the material rolled as Percy jumped to his feet and started off. Nico handed her the straps to tie everything together, "thanks," she didn't even look up as her hands kept working.

"Are you planning to run soon?" Nico didn't want it to come out accusingly or harsh but she still tensed up next to him. "I know you've been through things you can't even remember but all of us have done something we aren't proud of... This is a chance for a clean slate though. These people may surprise you, because regardless of who you were you've only done what you had to do to stay alive since."

Lady mumbled something before letting out a sigh and leaning back against the bundle she had just finished," You want to know why I haven't taken off my mask, don't you?" Nico looked at her puzzled, he knew she didn't want the others to see her face and know what she had done. She was wanted. "The real reason I don't want to take it off."

That threw Nico, he hadn't thought there was more to this. Perhaps he did but he never thought she would talk to him about it. He smiled and settled down beside her.

"I can't... I can't look at it." she was practically shaking beside him but Nico didn't push. "My reflection. Every time I... When I see myself I just... I feel something wrong and I'm disgusted."

 

 

Percy helped Rachel take down the kitchen and stuff all of it into one pack. It was amazing how charming objects worked so well, they fit the entire camp into one bag that Rachel was able to carry over her shoulder. Gage grabbed his own bag and knocked against Rachel with a smile, "glad to hear you're going to join us."

"Yes," Rachel smiled but Percy could tell her attention was still on Lady sitting with Nico. She was taking in so much emotion and trying to calm it for everyone and it was the feeling of peace that Percy was open to enjoy. "Since Megara left its been... Lonely not having everyone together. We all split up to try and get a handle on the damage. Nico coming along is an even bigger bonus because Premarin has been carrying most of the responsibility. She hadn't even told us about the baby, too worried of blowing Jake's cover."

"All of us have been busy," Gage leaned down and kissed Rachel on the top of her head, "we've forgotten what it's like to be happy with friends."

"I know that feeling," Percy glance back at Nico and watched him wrap an arm around her again. The spark of jealousy came back but he stamped it as someone's phone started going off. "You get service out here?"

Gage didn't even pay attention to the number before answering, "Go for Tony," his voice was bland, something warned Percy though that he was speaking in code. "Wait, who is this?"

The speaker on Gage's phone wasn't great so Percy only caught half the conversation as he stood with Rachel, both of them with their eyebrows raised. "Oh hey there Jimmy!" Gage locked his gaze with Rachel and her eyes widened, "you're at work, that's great to hear!" Pause. "No, I'm traveling back today. Looking forward to going home." Another pause and Gage looked over at Lady and paled slightly, "it's great the two of you got in touch.I'll see you later." And just like that he hung up the phone.

"When did Shaun get back?" Rachel followed on Gage's heels as he started for Lady and Nico. "Is he okay?"

Percy followed them since he had nothing better to do but part of him wondered if this was a conversation he should be listening to. When Nico saw everyone coming toward them his eyes flashed with protectiveness and Percy knew they were walking into something none of them were welcome to.

"Calm down Nico," while Gage spoke Percy could feel Rachel trying to calm them. "I just wanted to check with Lady that she was still joining us," both Gage and Nico looked to Lady with the same expression, eyes shining but mouths set into solemn lines.

Lady rubbed her hands together and Percy could tell she was still trying to decide but eventually she nodded. "I don't have any other leads to my memories," she whispered and Percy was happy to hear that she was trying to find something. "But even if I can't..." it sounded like she hiccupped and Nico tightened his arm around her, "I want to start over. Do you really think that you can teach me?"

Rachel looked at Gage and Percy could see tears glittering her eyelashes. "I've got some experience," Gage joked and nudged Lady's shoulder so she looked up at him before he crouched down to look at her, "I'll teach you anything you want to learn."

 

"I need to go find Prema," Rachel wiped her eyes as she took off running, her wings bursting from her back and lifting her to the sky. 

 

Percy wasn't sure what had caused everyone's mood to shift but he was thankful for it. He glanced at Nico and smiled, Nico smiled back but kept a protective arm around Lady while Gage knelt beside them, "We are getting ready to leave soon and we're meeting my cousin Shaun in New Rome." 

 

"Shaun is alright?" Lady;s demeanor changed and Percy could tell she was smiling, "He made it to New Rome?!" when Gage nodded Lady threw herself around his neck and both Percy and Nico gave each other a questioning look. Gage looked just as shocked but took it in stride as he rested his face against the top of her head. Percy saw his eyes fill with tears and one started to roll down his cheek. 

 

When Lady realized what she was doing she pushed away from Gage, "He is," he chuckled and Percy watched as Gage shut himself down with each word, no longer looking directly at Lady. "It's alright, he mentioned that he ran into you and Nico though." 

 

"He did," Nico spoke up and let Lady slide back behind him, "I'm glad to hear he is doing alright. He refused out help." 

 

"Of course he would," Gage chuckled but Percy could tell it was forced, "has to do everything on his own just like usual. But, he managed to gain the support of his mother this way." 

 

"His mother?" Percy drew Gage's attention away from Lady, "what do you mean his mother?" 

 

Gage looked toward the treeline where Prema and Rachel were both standing, holding each other and shaking though Percy wasn't sure why. "The goddess that blessed his birth, Nemesis.

 

Percy wasn't sure if that comforted him or scared him but the idea of having god officially on their side was something. All of them seemed to be on hiatus since the war started and even small appearances were rare. He hadn't even managed to get his own father to side with them. "That's good, isn't it?" he asked hesitantly.

 

"Nemesis has always had a soft spot for Shaun and he had to work pretty hard to gain her favor this time so I trust him. If it weren't for him more of us would have perished on the streets before finding New Rome." Gage seemed to manage a smile in even the most somber times and he reached out to grip Percy's shoulder, "We can't be more thankful to your people for everything you've done." 

 

"Your people are our people," Nico spoke up and made his way closer to Percy, "even if not all of us see it that way yet we will. This war effects all of us, there isn't time to be making more enemies." 

 

And Nico was right. It hadn't sunk in before, not the true realization that separating themselves between those from the island and those from the camps was another obstacle they couldn't afford. Percy was guilty of looking at these new demigods differently even if he didn't hate them and even that was too risky. He looked at Nico and then at Gage, "Let me make a call, I'm going to warn Reyna we're coming back and to be ready to move any people she can. You don't have to worry about man power now, after we take Alcatraz and get those who can't fight safe we will have everyone we need to take back the island." 

 

 

 

 

Lady tried not to shake as her head was breaking. She felt like her brain was made of glass and fracturing into a million pieces but there wasn't time for her to have a crisis. There was finally a purpose for her and all she needed to do was hold it together. Her mind was racing with the idea of being surrounded by strangers but there was nothing else for her to do. 

 

So why did Shaun's name make her want to throw up and cry? Why did Gage make her feel... home. And Prema's shadows felt warm on her skin... And Rachel... Lady caught Nico's eye while he was talking to Gage and excused herself, barely making it to the trees before she fell to her knees and tore her mask off to heave up the contents of her stomach. Once she was over the shakes she wiped her mouth and fitted her mask back on. There was still some part of her that wasn't willing to part with it but she pushed herself to her feet and headed back. 

 

Jake had come back to the fire, happy to hear that Percy was planning on getting fighters together to fight for the island. His eyes were still trained on the fire pit when Lady sat on the stump farthest from him. 

 

"You still look like shit," he said without looking at her. 

 

"And you're still an asshole," but her hand still went to her hair. Lady wondered what Jake would see if she took off her mask, had she been such a monster that he would run or try to kill her on sight. 

 

His expression never changed but he chuckled, "You know they lied to you," he whispered. "That faction lies to everyone that walks through their doors. I doubt you ever did anything wrong before they took you, they were looking for any reason to shoot one of us in the head." 

 

"And how can you be so sure?" Lady tore at her nails and tried to keep herself from looking at the closest person she had to a true friend from the days she had been locked away. 

 

There was silence, a temptation for her to look, but then Jake leaned back and she could feel his gaze on her. "Because, they said they would release me but only after we killed each other. Even if one of us did there isn't any world where they would have let me go. Not with my daughter and not with Megara's body. I have a feeling they burned it after they got the baby out..." 

 

"Why do you think that?" 

 

"Because," Jake sighed, "I don't feel her around me like I used to..." 

 

Lady turned and saw Nico with Percy again. Perhaps Jake looked like that once, happy. The two boys were still new to being honest with each other and anyone could see it. Jake had a wonderful laugh, but Lady had never seen it quite reach his eyes. If it ever did there would be no turning back for her, no one would be able to compare and that scared her more than the idea of getting her memories back. 

 

As the others gathered together Percy and Nico stood still by the fire, just beside Lady but not quite ready to approach her she assumed. "Percy, I think you need another breakfast bar," Nico poked Percy's side with his finger and then looked at him with nervous eyes, 

 

"You need one far more than I do," Percy pulled one out and handed it to Nico who blushed. "My skinny and your skinny are two very different types of skinny Nico," and Percy smiled at him so subtlety that Lady was sure he had missed it. 

 

Nico pocketed the snack and nudged Percy, "I eat just as much as you do," then even more hesitantly, "but thank you," and he kissed Percy lightly on the cheek before trying to turn to Lady.

 

"Oh that's just rude," and Lady watched as Percy tried to pull of pure confidence when he was obviously sweating. He pulled Nico back to him though and kissed him on the lips. Not a long or overly exaggerated kiss but it still held powerful meaning. Something new. 

 

When Lady looked back at Jake he was gone. She saw him a couple yards away slinging a bag that was far too big for his thin frame over a shoulder. But then she noticed that he had started to fill out again, his shoulders broader than she remembered and his legs stretching the fabric of his jeans instead of barely keeping them up. He looked healthier, at least more so than she did.  "Lady," Nico's voice broke her concentration and she was glad they couldn't see her blush. "Lady, are you ready to go?"

 

"Yeah," she nodded quickly and grabbed the bag of spare clothes that Rachel had given her. "I just... got distracted." Nico raised his eyebrows at her when she spoke but she chose to ignore it. "Lets go get my memories back." 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed this. I feel like this is what I always say at the end of an update but: I am sorry this took so long. Life has been very up and down for me but I promise I have not truly abandoned any of my works. I will do my best to update more regularly on this and my other works and I will be sure to edit them better than this, I honestly just needed to get this out though regardless. Thank you all for sticking by me.  
> -ThroughTheFog

**Author's Note:**

> So let me know if you guys want another chapter! I will not be abandoning my other works but I really have fun writing this and so I hope you guys will enjoy reading it. Character list will be updated with each chapter.  
> Do you guys think Megara managed to live? And how well will the two types of demigods get along?  
> Oh and let me know why you guys thing Annabeth left Percy!  
> Lastly who is subject 197088? Lady, what does she have to do with everything? Same for Tramp, what part does he play?  
> I would love to hear how you guys liked it and what all you think is going on. This will be a slow build but Lady basically forces them to spend time with each other so I wouldn't worry too much.  
> Love you guys!  
> -Megara aka ThroughTheFog


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